Got a lotta mint

11 years ago

I just wanted to crow about my mint bed. I had a troublesome area of the yard that was on an unmowable hill, full of weeds and gravel.. and is now becoming a plush mint bed.

Chocolate and pineapple were the first to go in. Now they have been added to with Ginger, Banana, Apple, Orange, Mojito, Kentucky Julip, and Lemon mints.

This area is in partial to full shade, and was a total PITA before I decided to plant in a heap of invasive and yummy "weeds" of my choosing. And now every time I mow down the edge of this area, it's one of the best smelling parts of the mowing day :)

And yep, we really do use this much mint. In various food dishes, teas, drinks of all sorts of summer goodness.

And now that crappy area is held in well with plants and won't erode, and those are tasty good herbs to use :)

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Comments (4)

gjcore
11 years ago
Very cool. I have a fair amount of different mints growing in my front yard. Been using an invasive vs. invasive theory. So far so good.
bardamu_gw
11 years ago
Beesneeds, that is impressive! I am also guilty of planting mints in slanted corners, though nothing as practical and colorful as your collection. I have two patches of lemon balm which I have to mow down-- the fragrance of lemon lingers about like place. Also plain old mint, spearmint and even a Cuban mint (yup, called mojito mint; you must give a round of applause to marketing tricks) spreads along fences and beneath the great maple tree with minimal fear of getting pulled like the weeds they truly are.

I have ask though, if you try to keep the mints somewhat seperated for identification, and do they get a reserved space? I imagine there will fierce competition for space and some of your mints may lose the fight.
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mersiepoo
11 years ago
Anyone can have my applemint, it's taking over! It used to be variegated, and then is plain old green. Plus, I can't stand the smell. I've been ripping it out and even burning it, but it still comes back! It's worse than that tansy, ugh!!!
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beesneeds
Original Author
11 years ago
Bardamu- yes, I am sort of keeping the mints seperated. The area is fairly large and I'm giving them their own space of at least a couple to several square feet of room each, and training them to fill their own space. I also have a stake with their name tag posted in the center of each planting, so when I trim and pull them back to their own areas, I know where I'm pulling back to.

But beyond that, I tried to be smart enough not to plant too similar looking mints close to each other. So for example, I have on the "back row" of the border chocolate mint, then pineapple, then ginger, then the Kentucky julip- that is actually "Kentucky Colonel spearmint", marketed up like the mojito is a Cuban mint marketed up. All the leaves are different enough in shape, texture, and color that I can tell them apart even when they grow together. Trailing down the rest of the hill in a sort of wedge are the rest of the mints, and again, I tried to make sure they were different looking ones next to each other.

I also tried to make sure I planted in a couple of the more sprawly ones into the deeper shade part of the area to help control it a bit- the apple mint and lemon mint. Wish I had done that to start with the chocolate mint, which is in a prime sun spot, lol. I started out a couple summers ago with the chocolate and pineapple, and the chocolate keeps creeping into the pineapple now- I just rip up the runners and throw them back to the center of the chocolate heap.