Peppermint is a sterile mint hybrid - this means it can't be grown from seeds, only cuttings/root divisions/transplants/layering etc.

'Candymint' is a specific variety of peppermint. This sounds weird, since peppermint is a sterile hybrid, so you're thinking "how could there be different varieties if you can only grow it clonally?", but they know which plants cross to produce peppermint, so breeding different varieties is possible.

So any peppermint would be listed by its proper name Mentha x piperita (in Italics) - any plant with this scientific name is a peppermint - and this specific variety called candymint would be listed Mentha x piperita 'Candymint' (again the Mentha x piperita would be in italics, but not the candymint part).

The the x in the scientific name denotes that it is a hybrid, and the second word or what would normally be the "species" name is actually the name they give to the hybrid (in this case piperita).

Could they both be the same thing marketed under different names? Is one sweeter smelling than the other? If U had a choice, which would u rather buy?

Candy mint smells like Doublemint gum.

Doublemint is a combo of peppermint and spearmint.

MInts!!

I have always called my mint that smells like a chocolate mint candy bar candy mint...don't know if it is the same as what you are speaking of. it has purplish tones to its leaves and stems. 12- 16 inches tall.

I also have spearmint...did you know there are different spearmints..one with a round leaf and one with a narrow leaf. both smell like spear mint gum. grows 18 -24 inches. the narrow leaf one grows shorter.

Peppermint..yuck...it is bitter smelling and has a very narrow serrated leaf. I have it and only sell it to resteraunts, don't use it. grows arout 16 inces tall.

apple mint...wow when steeped it taste like what you think chewing gum taste like..it has a large roundish furry leaf. It does not keep well after cut..should be used within 8 hours or wilts badly. It grows sometime 4 feet high but normal is 24-36 inches. it makes fabulous ice tea. there is a varigated applemint...but I don't have it and can't tell you about it. this one though is more invasive than any of the mints.

Lemon balm, melissa officinalis , is a mint family member. It is not invasive, it grows in a mound which grows larger each year. but is easily containable. It does self seed in very fertile soil but is easily pulled and relocated or disposed of. I have not found it a problem in my garden and when it does self seed I usually like where it tends to roam and relocate..by then I am usually ready to dig up the hedge of it Ihad elsewhere. Lemon blam can be made into a most refreshing lemonade.

I've heard that varieties of mints should not be grown close together, or they'll all start to taste the same. My chocolate mint dried out last summer, died back to the soil, and sprouted again from the roots, but the current leaves don't taste very good. Is that because it's a hybrid?

Lemon balm is a great favorite of mine. It does make yummy beverages and has some helpful medicinal qualities, so I consider it well worth the hassle. Some people consider it a weed!

I've gotten a bunch of answers but no real answers to question. Any real help here?

joyceteo to interperate what the others are telling you Candymint is a cultivar(type of) peppermint. This is similar to a parent having a child. The peppermint is the parent and by crossing with the peppermint you get the child, Candymint. The child has some of the carateristics of the parent but is slightly different than the original.

I hope this does not offend you but I could not think of any other way to phrase what I wanted to say.

yes, I explained it quite thoroughly, and like maifleur said, I don't know how describe it better

though I'll try: Candymint is a type, or "cultivar" of peppermint, just like "Gala" and "Granny Smith" are both kinds of apples, for example. They're both apples, but they are different types that have their own characteristics.

And to propose yet another example/analogy, there are different breeds of animals, like dogs. I have a Samoyed dog. Samoyeds are always blank-white, super fluffy and adorable, and can handle almost any amount of cold this planet can throw at them. While another dog, lets say a german shepherd, is brown, with a 1-inch coat, and makes a good guard dog, and would surely die in temperatures where a samoyed would be thinking "it's still too warm for my taste." They're very different, but they're both dogs. They could reproduce and make fertile offspring (i.e. offspring that can themselves reproduce with other dogs) almost 100% of the time.

The only thing that is kind of hard to understand is that peppermint is a hybrid. Usually different breeds or types or cultivars or varieties or whatever-you-want-to-call-it of an organism are relegated to a single, simple species. For example, apples are always simply Malus domestica, and dogs Canis domestica (it's actually more complicated than that for those two examples, but let's leave it at that for simplicity's sake). But peppermint is a hybrid, that is a cross between two other species of mint. It is a hybrid that occurs naturally. In other words, in places where both the parent species exist in close proximity (in this case Mentha and Mentha spicata), sometimes a bee, while doing his busy work, will carry the pollen of a plant of one species to the flowers of a plant of the other species, and the flowers will be fertilized, and produce seed that is the hybrid that we call peppermint. So peppermints pop up naturally

People eventually noticed this specific hybrid, and the ones living on that large, dreary island in the North Atlantic* started calling it "peppermint." They called all of the plants that were this hybrid "peppermint", regardless of each individuals specimens slight differences, since they were all indeed the same hybrid (which a person can easily tell since none of them are THAT different).

At some later time, a person, I suspect on that very same island, was taking a break from constantly drinking tea and playing soccer and oppressing the Irish**, found a specimen of peppermint in the wild (or perhaps a cross inadvertently happened in his garden) that was just a bit different but that he particularly liked, because it smelled like candy or something (I don't know what it smells like, you're the one with it***), and decided to call it "candymint" and then propagate it (make more plants - in this case by just letting the mint spread and cutting clumps of it when needed) and give it to his neighbors and other farmers, or maybe the lord of the manor, and to this day people have been growing it, including you now.

just in case you didn't get some parts:
*I'm talking about England
**again, a person from England, and the way I described him is just a joke
***by "it" I mean candymint - I don't know what it smells like/what about the smell is different from most peppermints - but you do since you're growing it

got it?
I'm trying to explain it so you really UNDERSTAND it conceptually, that is, what we mean by a "cultivar" or "type"

If you still can't understand, just remember that "candymint is a type of peppermint"

deckplanter, that thing about the mints tasting the same does seem feasible, if not from the roots of different varieties literally joining/grafting together underground and then sharing their fluids/chemicals, then at least from the roots becoming tangled together and then getting sprouts of the two different varieties in the same clump. And What do you mean by "Is that because it's a hybrid?" Alls I can tell you is that the plant the re-sprouted from the roots is genetically the same plant you had before, a clone if you will. Indeed it IS the same plant since it just died and re-sprouted - the roots survived the entire time.

And just for clarification's sake, maifleur's analogy is kind of faulty, different cultivars aren't a parent-child relationship, or even really like it, and peppermint can't even have "children," it's sterile.

I think the best explanation for most people is different kinds of apples or fruits, or different breeds of animals. Especially with dogs, since most people understand that any two dogs can cross and make a "mutt" - the concept of a species as being defined as the organisms that can produce fertile offspring is inherent in that.

Peanuttree, I like your explaination better than mine but some people are sterile just like plants. The mutt explaination is better.