It is trying to plant itself.

My inclination would be to simply place it's pot where you want it to go wild.

Thanks Eibren. Is there any way to, er, 'help' the plant grow up and over the lip too? I don't really mind if it escapes (as you can tell with my chocolate mint) but it's not giving me much of a chance to get peppermint with how it's growing right now. :P

Once it gets what it wants it may do what you want, is my only thought.

It seems to want to be planted directly in the ground....

Is there a reason why the level of the potting medium is so low?

Rhizo, I really don't know? I didn't think about that... I think maybe we did it to give the mint space to grow around up and in the pot before it started spilling over (obviously didn't work with the chocolate mint. I just checked my other photos of the mints I have, and all of them are planted at that level, and all of them are thriving, but perhaps my peppermint doesn't prefer it.

I tried to ruffle up the sisters on top, unburied what I could from the ground and tried to lift them up as far as I could to encourage them to start growing more that way. If that doesn't work and it continues to stay this way I'll probably just take the whole plant and put it in the ground and then use the pot to start a 2nd bunch of one of my more busy mints.

I'm not sure I quite follow what it is you want your peppermint to do. Its natural growth habit is to spread by creeping runners and that is what it is doing. I agree with rhizo_1 that it is sitting very low in the pot which won't help it get up over the edge.

In fact I am wondering if that is actually peppermint.

Could it be pennyroyal? The leaves look quite small and shiny.

One of the reasons the soil level is so low, is that the plant has been in the pot for quite some time. The soil has compacted, some of it has drained out the drainage holes, and the plant has depleted some of it. And since there isn't much soil, that's why the leaves are so small - the plant is hungry. You'll find if you upend the pot that the plant is quite potbound. A very common problem with mints. I suggest you divide the plant, and repot with fresh potting mix.

Those runners, once they get going, will try to take over the entire world - they can travel long distances, and can take root wherever they touch the ground. ie if left to its own devices, mint can quickly become a weed.

HINT: when transplanting into a pot, fill the pot with potting mix, allowing enough space in the centre for the existing plant, plus a bit more. Add the plant, add more potting mix as needed, then lift the pot and return it to the potting table with a firm thud. This sharp movement helps the soil to compact down (fill in the air pockets), and you'll usually find that another couple of handfuls of potting mix will be needed. Once you water in the plant, you might find it necessary to add yet more soil - once again, the soil will compact down a little with the water. This procedure will give your plant a head start.

Flora_uk - I guess I'm just expecting it to produce more UP instead of digging down into the dirt and trying to move towards the bottom of the pot. To grow more like my sweet mint, or my chocolate mint (2nd picture in the original post).

Daidy- THANK YOU! These are my first real pot plants, I didn't even think about that. I will definitely be repotting them all soon, now that I'm looking at the pictures of when I first potted them, and seeing how much they've lost soil. It's only been a month! O.O They were maybe 2 inches from the lip before, but they're definitely mid-pot now.... why would the soil deplete so quickly? My leaves are finally starting to get bigger on my plants. I've worked on cutting back a lot of the long runners to help it grow better. The peppermint is especially doing a lot better since I pulled all the short low-sitting runners up more, and dug out the runners that were going down.

I'm also aware of they're aggressiveness. I don't mind minty weeds, beats the weeds that I can't use or hate (like the giant ragweed). :) I've had my sweet-mint in the ground in my main garden with strawberry plants for 2 years now and in just the last 2 years it's definitely spread (along with the strawberries). Just spent yesterday cutting out all the sweet-mint so it can pop back up (dried what I cut out).

I would agree that it appears like pennyroyal which I read isn't edible for us.

We had a corner of spearmint when my daughter was young then changed our mind a few years later on that corner of the driveway garden. We thought there could never be too much mint, but when it was going into the apple tree roots and I decided to plant rhubarb and flowering plants there the mint had to be dug out. We filled a black garbage bag & shared with someone who wanted to get a huge patch going.

We kept some in large pots both in an outer fancier pot or in a double pot then sunk in the ground so it looks like it's growing free, but it's not. :o)

I thought I dug out all the roots because I dug up all the plants there in the corner, but it only takes a little bit of that white root to S P R E A D again. It's manageable now, but I pull them every time I work that garden several times a year. I don't put any delicate plants there or they'd be lost.

One good thing about the mint there is that the moles stay away.

Corrine