Along one of the areas I walk Lily is a patch of wild mint (and before the jokes start, no, “wild mint” is not code for marijuana) that I want to transplant. It is some of the strongest stuff I have ever smelled or tasted- a deep, rich green leaf with so much oil that just touching it and your hands smell like mint for hours. Far stronger than any of the stuff I grew in my herb garden and far better than anything you can get in the store. I just love it in my tea, and pick a little every time I walk by it.
At any rate, how would I go about transplanting it? Can plants get “soil shock” or whatever it is called if you move them from one soil to another (like fish when you move them to new aquariums)? I know my dad used to be able to grow things in a vase of water and replant them, but I never figured out the specifics. Or am I over-thinking this and I should just dig it up and throw it in the ground where I want it?
MikeJ
Dude, you are totally overthinking it. Just dig up clumps of it and plunk it down in your yard somewhere. It will do fine — we had it take over part of our yard once.
WereBear
Dude, seriously. Be careful.
Mint is second only to bamboo in speed and invasive behavior. Not only will you not set it back by replanting it, you will soon have more mint that you know what to do with.
Container, container, container. It is the Tribble of the plant world.
lane
Beat me by 2 minutes – Though I think WereBear is being slightly conservative in his warning.
AhabTRuler
Um, I generally try several methods of propagation. Cuttings work, depending on the plant, and you can either root them in water or get Rootone rooting hormone. you can also try digging up a bit of the plant and replanting it.
Just remember, if you are in a national park, and many state parks, it is illegal to collect any samples, living or dead.
hilzoy
John: What WereBear said. you do not need to worry that mint — any kind of mint — will get soil-shock. You do need to worry that it will eat your garden alive, and that you will spend the rest of your days on your knees, digging out wayward bits of its root system, trying to keep any tiny piece of your garden for any other plant. Mature oak trees have been known to quake in peril at the thought of mint. You should too.
Keep it in a pot. Maybe a large pot, if you want a lot of it. Having mint around is a wonderful thing, especially in ice tea season. Having it completely take over your garden is not.
Also, be aware that catnip is a member of the mint family, and cats really get into some kinds of mint.
Skepticat
@WereBear: Spot on with the Tribble comment! Mint’s as bad as Chinese lanterns–but at least mint has some redeeming qualities. It makes great ground cover if you have lots of space, but WereBear’s soooo correct about the container.
David
@WereBear: I agree with WereBear. I have seen mint take over an entire yard. Use a container, dig up a bit of the root and some of the plant, and it can’t help but grow like crazy – but within the confines of a pot.
susteph
totally second (third?) what hilzoy said. i planted some mint in a container sunk into the ground two years ago. it is now all over my garden. don’t even try to put it someplace you wouldn’t want it to escape and take over.
and it’s so easy to transplant! it can start up from any tiny piece of root. in my first vegetable garden (that should be a title for a children’s book: My First Vegetable Garden), i remember i read someplace that mint was a good companion plant for broccoli. the person who wrote that was evil. not only did it not help with the broccoli (the groundhog got it all), when i rototilled the following spring, i had mint freakin’ everywhere in the garden. ev. ery. where.
word to the wise.
Violet
Agree with everyone else. Mint is incredibly invasive and will take over everything. It’s also very hardy and doesn’t require a lot of special handling. Just dig some up and transplant it.
I think you’ll be better if if you put it in a pot instead of the ground. Especially as you’re heading into winter and that means freezing temps where you live, now isn’t an idea transplanting time of year, so putting it in a pot will allow you to move it closer to the house, or even inside, if it gets cold. You can always put it in the ground and let it take over everything next spring if you are so inclined.
Miriam
I agree with all of the above including hilzoy (Are you THE hilzoy?). My cat eats the mint I have in a pot.
cincyanon
I have a wonderful lemon mint growing in my garden. It’s also growing in cracks in the sidewalk and the drive and in the grass…
werebear’s got the goods for you.
You know what goes great with mint plants? Wild Strawberry.
Tsulagi
Forget the tea…mojitos! I like mine with a lot of mint.
Jennifer
Mint is also very easy to root in water. Just plop a few sprigs in there and it’ll sprout roots. But what others said about it taking over…yeah. Consider – the “wild” mint that you encounter on your walks got there somehow – my guess is by running rampant from a plant that someone originally planted in the vicinity.
chopper
mint is tough, wild mint doubly so. tho it is getting a bit late in the season to move something. that being said, it would still come back.
i agree about it going all over the place. either a container or a sectioned-off area of the yard is best.
WereBear
Now, granted, mint’s qualities turn into assets in the right place. If you have a soggy patch where nothing else will grow, a natural stream you’d like to bioterraform, or a wild rosebush that could use some living groundcover, mint’s yer man!
And yes, it can attract the kitties. Catnip is a member of the mint family.
Bad Horse's Filly
@WereBear:
This.
Bill H
Mint is the American version of Kudzu.
When I lived in Atlanta there was a guy worked with us who was a transplant from Boston. He had serious problems with our eating habits; was totally baffled by grits, for instance, and especially by greens. We were talking about the Kedzu problem one day and he said, “Hell, I figured you damned people would have figured out a way to boil it and eat it by now.”
DarcyPennell
I like to grow mint in a pot that’s sunk in the ground. In my experience the invasive mint roots are pretty close to the surface so the drainage hole in the bottom of the pot hasn’t been a problem. But I keep an inch or two of the pot sticking up above the surface to stop the roots from jumping over the edge. The pot keeps the mint from going crazy, and it doesn’t dry out as fast as in a regular container.
Fern
@Violet:
I’ve had mint survive over the winter in a pot – in my zone 3 garden.
Don’t know what winters are like where John lives, but it might be pushing one’s luck to transplant and leave outside at this time of year.
R-Jud
We’ve got lemon mint, spearmint, peppermint, and apple mint growing out back (quarantined in pots half-sunk in the ground). A super dessert in the summer: pile up some fresh berries with cream, smashed cookies, and torn mint leaves. Yum.
Emma
And another word to the wise — oregano. NOT outside a pot. Either I planted the most runaway oregano in the history of agriculture of that thing was a mutant. It ate half the garden and the mint ate the other half. Had to dig every little root up by hand and pot them.
Containerize is the only word for those two monsters.
BruceFromOhio
Have you ever seen weeds growing in the tiny spaces around a parking stop? It was probably mint.
WereBear called it: containment is the appropriate policy.
JGabriel
WereBear:
Yeah, but it’s the south, sort of. If the mint gets out of hand, can’t you just fight it off by planting some kudzu?
.
Punchy
They have mint in Dub-Virginia?
Chris
@Bill H
Man u almost killed me!! The yankee is right!…Yeah we love the greens here in NC and GA…If it was edible it would be in a pot with a hamhock at somebody’s grandma’s house.
JScott [formerly a Scott H]
It should be iterated that you do not want mint loose in your garden. Knock or cut the bottom out of a large container if you want to plant the mint outside in the ground. I used large, open-ended coffee tins. Then, vigilance. The price of mint tea is eternal vigilance.
Bort
I like my eggs with mint. I call it mint mint mint mint mint eggs and mint.
Randy P
Agree with what others say. Mint is hardy stuff, and it can really take over a patch. Don’t worry about transplanting it, it will survive. (Cue Gloria Gaynor soundtrack)
I love the smell when you crush those leaves.
Kirk Spencer
I have been tempted to plant mint in my back yard; uncontained mint, just to set up a war of the invasives.
See, the previous owners planted bamboo. Then, prior to selling the house, they cut it all down to the ground. Well mostly down to the ground. There were these little natural punji stakes….
I’ve dug up all the stakes and nodes I can find. Every year, several times a year, I’ve the (ahem) pleasure of spotting new growth through the yard and dealing with it in an appropriate fashion.
It would be a three-way war. The neighbor’s ground ivy has also encroached. It prefers the shadier parts of the yard.
Mint would start the battle as an underdog, but I have faith in the mint. Years ago in total ignorance I chopped up a mint plant in a container and did not do a good job of picking up the sprigs, then went on a two week vacation. (Insert music and thunder of doom)
Grass, not even the TOUGH stuff, has no chance.
And yes, John, everybody is telling the solid truth
Violet
@Fern:
Yeah, mint is pretty hardy, but everything struggles a bit after transplanting, so doing that right as winter is approaching is not ideal. If he were to transplant it in the spring, he could pretty much do whatever he wanted and it would survive.
@Emma:
Oregano is in the mint family, so it acts the same way. All those mints are so…determined.
Mean Gene
You could yank a handful of mint out of the ground, throw it on an asphalt driveway, and three months later you’d have a full field of mint. Like many other commentators I STRONGLY recommend you put it in some sort of container and segregate it. Mint took over a corner of my yard and I declared jihad against it, almost literally enacting a scorched-earth policy. One of my biggest regrets is that when we sold the house I hadn’t fully eradicated it. The mint won.
Mako
@Kirk Spencer:
Bamboo spreads by rooting just under the surface of the ground. It can easily be controlled with a sharp shovel driven into the ground around the plant.
CynDee
Yeeoww.
Nora Carrington
If mint looks like it is dead, it isn’t. It’s a perennial, and if you leave a pot of mint on your porch/patio and all the leaves fall off and the branches freeze and then rot in warmer temperatures, have patience, grasshopper. I replanted my potted mint in July, after I thought Global Warming ^H an unusual run of 100°F days here in the Pacific NorthWet had killed it. Now I have two plants happily cohabitating, as the “dead” one grew again from the roots left in the pot after I’d pulled out the top. I’d go so far as to recommend leaving it out to overwinter rather than trying to bring it inside as hard freezes are sometimes required for plant health during the next season. Or have two pots, one to live outside and one to bring in for mint tea in front of the fire. Tunch may destroy it, however.
Your Friends at RedState
John, don’t listen to all the doomsayers. Clear off a little patch right in the middle of the lawn, plant a few cuttings of mint, and give it loads of TLC. In no time, your ward will be the talk of the neighborhood.
Tsulagi
@WereBear:
We have almost an acre lot on a fairly steep hillside. Previous owners terraced the lot so we have multiple yards with steep connecting areas. To keep water from rain and snow from messing with the house foundation there’s a drainage system that takes the water downslope. Problem is that turns part of our lower property super soggy almost marsh like until it dries out mid summer.
We’ve tried a few different ground covers for the lower non-yard steep areas, but nothing has really worked out. Maybe because the ground is too wet for six months of the year and with a lot of trees not enough sun. Would mint work? At the edge of a yard area could it just be whacked back with a weed eater? Or would a lot of it travel underground sprouting up inside a yard area? Little bit wouldn’t mind as it could just be mowed down with the grass. Having the smell of mint and a mojito ingredient sounds kinda nice.
patty gann
1. don’t dig all of it up just in case what you’ve transplanted doesn’t make it. then in the spring, you can go back and get more.
2. i think it’s the wrong time of year to transplant a soft stem plant like mint. admittedly, mint is hardy but the ground is so cold now that the roots won’t have a chance to grow before the ground freezes.
3. dig some up and put it in a pot and grow indoors until next spring.
Mako
@Tsulagi:
Lily of the Kings Iris (Iris pseudacorus). Beautiful flowers, no maintenance, it will grow in a freakin’ pond.
Kirk Spencer
@Chris: ummm. Kudzu IS edible.
If you pick young leaves they’ve the texture of fresh spinach and a taste reminiscent of fresh green beans. Cook in any fashion you’d cook spinach. Salads, crisps from deep frying, quiches, steamed, etc.
Medium leaves work well as a dolmas type wrap. (Dolmas use grape leaves.) Do them JUST as you’d do grape leaves – boil in salted water for 2-3 minutes to soften and cut out the heavy vein before wrapping and cooking.
Kudzu blossom jelly is… It’s amazingly good. As a close approximation of taste, picture concord grape jelly with a strong secondary flavor of mixed wild plus a hint of ‘greens’. The jelly’s color is something of a cross between plum and apricot jelly.
Making it is simultaneously easy and an amazing lesson in chemical changes. See, after washing them you steep four cups of blossoms in four cups of boiled water overnight, then you strain out the blossoms and start using the liquid. The liquid at this point is, well, it’s grey with purplish overtones. Bleah – at least it smells good. You add a tablespoon of lemon juice and start to boil it and the color changes to that beautiful… anyway, at the same time you add the lemon juice you add the package of pectin. Bring to a boil, add five cups of sugar, bring back to a boil till the sugar’s completely dissolved, and skim the foam and bottle. That, by the way, will give you about three pints of jelly, your choice as to bottle sizes.
And finally, if you’re willing to do the work you can get a fine flour/starch from the roots. I’ve met some folk who’ll cube the tubers and boil them, but to me they’re still too tough for eating that way. (On the other hand, the liquid in which they’re boiled thickens from the released starch. No slurry, and easy to remove, which makes them useful for some dishes.)
WereBear
@Tsulagi: The key is the kind of soil that’s getting flooded. If it’s intermittent flooding, on a hillside, you are probably in business. I would try all kinds of different mints, for different taste sensations, and let them fight it out. You get different flowers that way, too.
Also, there is a way to try getting mint out of existing areas which can work well… it’s kinda the Nuke It From Space, It’s the Only Way to be Sure option.
It’s called Solarization. Put down a heavy, clear, plastic tarp (thicker the better) over the area, and bury the rolled edges a foot down. Now let the sun bake it over at least two years. This kills everything that’s shallow, seeds and all. Then compost the heck out of it and enjoy.
Think of it as non-crop rotation.
Mako
@Mako:
@Tsulagi:
See also Japanese primrose.
Kirk Spencer
@Mako: Ha. Ha.
1) The bamboo was there long enough it’s got a fairly wide network of root system.
2) If you cut a root and leave it, it sprouts. Just. Like. Mint. I know this not only from the yard but because I tested it, burying a small (three inch) segment of root end in a pot. A few weeks later I had bamboo growing in the pot.
Turns out there’s a ‘joke’ in the local gardening businesses:
“How do I get rid of bamboo the previous owners planted?”
“Kill the people who planted it before they do it again.”
BigHank53
If it’s a public space, leave the mint there and pick what you need on Lily’s walks. Lowest-effort gardening ever. Move some to a handy median strip. Plant some in your worst neighbor’s yard.
I used to get my mint from an ornamental planting at work.
If you do want your own, though, either move it to a pot inside or grab a chunk next spring.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
From your description it sounds like it might be pennyroyal. Maybe you could post a picture of it.
Mint is usually easy to grow, just pull out a clump with a bit of root on it. Since it’s almost winter I’d put it in a pot in a semi-protected place and then transplant it where you want it in the spring. I’ve never run into a mint that you could kill without trying really hard.
Standard mint disclaimer: don’t plant it if you don’t like weeding.
Mako
@Kirk Spencer:
Well, you’re just not doing it right. Perhaps I forgot to mention that you need to trim the roots regularly? And by regularly I mean, oh maybe, everyday and twice a day during the spring? But why the hate on bamboo? Excellent useful plant, hell you can make cups and knife-handles and chairs and bongs out of it.
bcinaz
A little Vit B solution for the roots to stem root shock. However, really, with mint, you should pot it. “Wild” means ‘will grow anywhere’
Fleem
@Kirk Spencer:
I think you need a panda.
Kirk Spencer
@Mako:
I say again: surprise punji stakes from when the prior owners cut them down to an inch or so above ground prior to selling, long enough prior that the grass had slightly overgrown.
A daughter and a friend she had over for a party got a grip to the emergency room for pierced feet.
And again, it’s all over the back yard instead of being in a controlled clump because the prior owners did not control it.
jenniebee
The last time I planted mint, it was in a barren spot on the side of the house where nothing else would take hold. I put in one rooting of mint, one of lemon balm 5ft away from it, then sat back to see which thug would win.
monkeyboy
If you want a bigger mint patch than just a container’s worth, you can put it in the ground, but you should sink some plastic edging around it to keep the roots contained. this from Lowes, should do but when you dig up the mint you should check to see that the horizontal roots don’t go deeper than its 4.5″ width. If so you would need a wider root block.
I haven’t had my edging pop out of the ground by frost heave but for some people this is a problem.
andy
Mint is easy, but yeah, in you situation I would just start a cutting and then plant it in a container. And after last night’s booze thread, I can’t believe nobody mentioned Mint Juleps!
WereBear
@andy: Mojitos were mentioned, and they count.
Kirk Spencer
I should point out that letting the mint take over the yard isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I lived for a while with an uncle who had planted several invasive herbs –mint and lemongrass, creeping thyme, etc — somewhat randomly around the yard. He’d given them a season to get fully established, then let them go. After a few years the plants had come to a bit of an etente with various territories firmly held and others in constant flux depending on season and weather.
I invite you to imagine the smell when he mowed the yard. It may have LOOKED like a yard gone to weeds, but oh the smell…
pika
While you’re at it, plant some lemon balm, too.
Mako
@Kirk Spencer:
See, a yard full of sharpened punji sticks sounds like a plus to me, but then I might not be your typical homeowner.
Anyway, nevermind, you are right, the stuff is almost impossible to get rid of once its been allowed to spread too far. The panda suggestion sound like your best bet.
WereBear
@Kirk Spencer: I would recommend a systemic herbicide.
This is generally marketed as a poison ivy killer, since that’s something you don’t want to be near. But this is turning bamboo’s greatest weapon, its high metabolism, against it, since spraying any part of the plant will swiftly carry the poison into the roots.
It breaks down, so does not poison the soil, only the plant. It also lets you treat bamboo on your property, while its roots are on someone’s else property, if that’s pertinent.
I used it successfully to kill a rampant honeysuckle which killed a red maple, a fence, and some ornamental junipers, and was setting its sights on pets and small children.
I wound up using several cans; you might want to order a case.
Tsulagi
@WereBear:
@Mako:
Thanks for the suggestions. Might try both as we several separated steep areas that could use ground cover.
BTW, we have bamboo planted in a few areas by previous owners that’s pretty well behaved. Pretty much stays just in its area with some occasional sprouts up to three feet away that come up I can just step on to break off.
Don’t know what type it is; we’re not gardeners. Luckily previous owners landscaped the outside to run on autopilot because with us indoor plants come to our house to die.
Mako
@Tsulagi:
You are welcome. Iris and the primrose look very nice together.
I’m also a fan of multiflora rose, (nothing keeps the damn kids off the lawn like multiflora rose) but you probably shouldn’t listen to that suggestion.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Plants didn’t get robust enough to basically cover all the watered areas of the earth by being delicate and dainty. They are mostly pretty resilient.
Talk to some folks at the nursery who know their subject, get some soil and amendments, and go for it. Pay attention to the plants, the way we pay attention to our pets, and you will soon figure it all out.
My other advice as an amateur gardener is to pay a lot of attention to what you can’t see … the root structure. Plants live and die mostly on what is going on with their roots, and around their roots. Pay attention to that, keep that part healthy, and the part you can see will mostly take care of itself.
Kirk Spencer
@WereBear: Thanks.
Toning down the hyperbole a little, I’ve gotten it mostly under control with lots of sweat equity (shovel and mattock). I’ve been hesitant about using systemic herbicides mostly due to pets, partially due to neighbors who plant gardens next to my fence (and use buried edgers to block the bamboo).
I am fighting the ivy. And the poison oak that snuck in for the six months between when the owners left and we purchased. And a few other ‘special’ plants. I’m winning, but only because I’m presently unemployed and have both time and a need to work out frustrations. Nonetheless, I’m 3/4 serious about planting mint and letting it fight the other stuff; not least because I remember my uncle’s yard.
Oh, and @Mako, there have been times in my life where I’d agree about the yard full of punji stakes. However, I no longer live near those people, and have my own child and pets to worry about.
bemused
If this mint spreads like oregano, it is very hardy & should be easy to transplant as long as you dig up a clump with a large portion of roots & dirt. I agree on the pot suggestions to contain it.
I wish other plants would grow one fourth as well as oregano. That herb is like kudzu.
Mako
@Kirk Spencer:
heh. Without hyperbole, how would we ever communicate?
Many years ago my kids and a neighbor kid borrowed my garden clippers and carved a clubhouse under an unruly bush on the fenceline. I was impressed by their ambitious work. Unfortunately, the bush also housed an ancient poison ivy vine, a fact we were unaware of until all 3 kids bloated up like sausages and had to be fed steriods for a week.
J in WA
Re: the container method that many folks have mentioned, that’s exactly how I deal with my mint. (And my horseradish, another invasive plant.)
What I did was go to Home Depot and buy a five-gallon bucket, then saw off the bottom with a hacksaw. Sink that into the ground in the garden with the lip of the bucket exposed, and plant the mint in it.
Not surprisingly, this is called the “bottomless bucket” method, and it works well.
Becky
Yes, mint will invade if you let it, but it’s also very easy to pull out. I have a huge bed of it underneath my bedroom window. When the sun hits it the smell wafts up through the open window. Wonderful. I pay for this by pulling up about half a paper sack full every 3 months or so. The roots are shallow and easy to pull out, and the soil they leave behind is crumbly and rich. Preferably do this when it hasn’t rained for a while — much less messy.
Mint likes a good root run, so if you are going to grow it in a pot go for the kind of pot that has a large surface area but isn’t very deep.
debit
On the off chance one of you experts is still hanging around in this thread, does anyone know how to get rid of Creeping Charlie? Over the last ten years I’ve tried almost every kind of herbicide you can imagine and even stripping it out by hand. It just keeps coming back. My neighbors got rid of it by dousing their entire yard in Round Up, then letting it sit bare for most of a summer before putting in new sod. That seems to have done it, but I don’t want to go that extreme.
Mako
@debit:
Creeping Charlie produces rennet. You can make vegetarian cheese!
Or get sheep. Or-
Controlling Creeping Charlie
licensed to kill time
Mint grows like a weed. Catnip is a form of mint. I once got a huge pot of catnip growing from seeds that were at the bottom of a cat scratchypad someone gave me. I lifted up the cardboard doodad they scratched on and underneath were all these little black seeds (I thought they were bugs at first). I threw them into an old pot outside the door and in no time at all had a flourishing catnip plant.
My cats loved to sleep in it, just curl up and dream sweetnippy dreams. They loved to eat it, too (it’s good for their tummies) and in the fresh form it doesn’t drive them too nutty.
debit
@Mako: Oh, thank you. I think it’s too late to apply any now, but the pesticide in that article sounds new to me. I can’t wait for spring to try it.
Leisureguy
Mint grows like wildfire. Plant it where you can keep it contained. OTOH, my mint ran out into yard, among the grass, and smelled fantastic when I mowed.
It’s not delicate or fragile. Dig up a couple of plants and plant them and they should take off.
Stella Gorlin
DON’T PLANT MINT IN YOUR GARDEN! It will take over. Plant mint in a separate clay pot on the patio. This will keep it contained. Mint is incredibly robust and invasive. Delicious but dangerous. We cut some spearmint and put it into a vase in our kitchen. It is growing in the vase!
Ted
@MikeJ:
Agreed on the ease of propogating this. And forget the pot, even though others are correct about it’s invasiveness. Put it on the edge of a mowed area, underneath a small group of trees or on a fenceline maybe, away from your gardens. Nothing can compete with lawn grass so long as regular mowing occurs, even mint.
Also, keeping it outside means your cat dosen’t have a reason to start destroying houseplants or digging into the pots. They won’t go all catnip-crackhead over it, but mint does get their attention.
Martin
@Leisureguy:
Even odds you can yank out a chunk of it and just toss it down in the yard where you want it to grow, and so long as water hits it, you’ll have successfully transplanted it. And as others have noted, you’ll likely have successfully transplanted it to every corner of your yard as well.
Culpepper
So what’s wrong with walking on mint?
Smells better than lawn grass.
Biting bugs don’t like it.
I
It keeps some bugs away from the location, so it does something for the garden.
What’s not to like.
We have lots of cats and once had lots of catnip. Now we have to keep it in hanging baskets. Our furry friends climbed a four feet tall hardware cloth fence to get to our last catnip ground planting and ate it all.
jayjaybear
Doublecheck to see if this mint is actually pennyroyal, because pennyroyal is toxic to cats (it’s an efficient flea repellent, but it’s not used in the cat version of flea collars for that reason). If Tunch gets in the garden at all, or you bring a pot of it inside for the winter as has been advised, you really don’t want it to be pennyroyal for Tunch’s sake.
Culpepper
So what’s wrong with walking on mint?
Smells better than lawn grass.
Biting bugs don’t like it.
It’s medicinal
It keeps some bugs away from the location,
so it does something for the garden.
What’s not to like.
We have lots of cats and once had lots of catnip. Now we have to keep it in hanging baskets. Our furry friends climbed a four feet tall hardware cloth fence to get to our last catnip ground planting and ate it all.
Culpepper
So what’s wrong with walking on mint?
Smells better than lawn grass.
Biting bugs don’t like it.
It’s medicinal
It keeps some bugs away from the location,
so it does something for the garden.
What’s not to like.
We have lots of cats and once had lots of catnip. Now we have to keep it in hanging baskets. Our furry friends climbed a four feet tall hardware cloth fence to get to our last catnip ground planting and ate it all.
Chuck Butcher
They farm mint just north of here outside LaGrande, OR – that would be the 45th parallel at 2800 ft elv. It is a pretty tough plant, yes we have actual winters and no we don’t get a lot of snow cover to protect the ground. Snow is an insulation. You’d be hard put to find a weed that is tougher and more invasive.
dancinfool
WAY overthinking. You can’t kill mint. It’s like kudzu.
Also. You can put cuttings of just about anything in water and watch it grow roots before you transplant to garden or container.
Jose C
Mint’s a tough weed. Pull some up. Don’t plant it in the ground unless you want it to take over.
Mako
@debit:
You are welcome.
Don’t know where you are weather-wise, but from the article-
Herbicide applications should be made when the weeds are actively growing. Mid to late autumn, after the first frost, is an excellent time to apply herbicides to creeping Charlie and other perennial broadleaf weeds. At this time the plants are busily sending food reserves to the roots, so the herbicide is moved down to the roots as well, resulting in better control.
jean
John, make sure it is not pennyroyal. See wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennyroyal
The stuff can be toxic, especially to Tunch and Lily. And you, if you indulge too often.
Otherwise: tribbles.
jean
@Tsulagi: There’s clumpers and there’s runners. Consult any good gardening book for the particulars.
grandpajohn
My way of controlling the bamboo from a neighboring yard is with a stout leg and good work shoes. during spring sprouting season, I get a daily work out by going out and start kicking when the sprouts are just breaking out and are only a few inches high. Since bamboo grows from the tip, once the tip is broken off there is no more growth.
Comrade Darkness
@hilzoy: In case it hasn’t been said, because I don’t have time to read it all… only ivies really like to root in straight water and second, you can container the mint IN the ground, just bury the pot leaving about 1-2 inches above the ground. This keeps the roots from sending out a borg like net of shoots, but keeps things moist so you don’t have to water every single day like an above ground pot.
I do this with most all my herb bed because most herbs are voracious weeds that will battle it out like some season-long WWF grudge match.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@WereBear: This (and everyone else).
It’s just waiting for you to take it home so it can engulf your entire neighborhood.
The monster we planted grows via runners. If what ever you bring home is like that, take a shovel and stab all around the main plant once a year, pull up the parts you’ve cut off and … put them in the yard of someone you don’t like.
Of Bugs and Books
@J in WA:
Another choice of material for containing the invasives (fertile locations) / solution plants (infertile areas) is plastic (rubbery) trash cans, e.g. an old one that needs replacing anyway. Cut into rings in widths appropriate for the depth of the roots plus a couple of inches or more so stolons can’t climb over the edge.
@Mako:
Good article. For those averse to herbicides, the info on boron (borax) is a warning to not use it. It will stay in typical soils, especially clay soils.
jharp
I do it with trees all the time. And have for 25 years.
It’s best to wait until after a hard freeze. And we haven;t yet had one.
Then dig the biggest clump you can handle. Then transplant. And water generously.
Or wait until early early spring and do the same thing. And water it very generously.
Either way it will do fine.
And. The first year it will survive. The second it will lay out some serious roots. The third it will flourish. As long as the conditions are right.
I’d plant it in several different spots to determine what spot it likes best.
Peter
I have that stuff growing in, out, and around my herb garden. Yeah, it spreads, but I sort of hemmed it in with oregano, lemon balm, and chives, which are all plenty assertive, so they just sort of slug it out and collectively choke out almost all the weeds. It’s a grudge match, but a tasty one. If you have room I wouldn’t worry about it. It also likes wet places where other things might not do so well.
Litlebritdifrnt
Truedit, I have mint, chocolate mint, spearmint and lemon balm in my garden. By the side of my pond I had two nice planters (with drainage holes in the bottom) filled with pretty annuals, the chocolate mint slid from the bed beside the pond, UNDER the planters (through the cracks in the pavers), up through the drainage holes and eventually started sprouting in the planters. The lemon balm (which I love and use constantly whenever I cook salmon) not only spreads by runners but seeds itself into the cracks between the pavers, I right now have a plant that is about 3″ wide and 3″ tall that has its root base in a 1/4 inch crack in the concrete pavers. I leave it there cause the skeeters don’t like it. I have yanked up huge clumps of mint from my flower beds and thrown them on the compost heap where they will happily grow, despite their lack of “transplanting” I allow many types of mint to grow inbetween my pavers simply because they are so hardy and they smell absolutely delicious when you step on them (and you cannot kill them, they just get stronger). Tribbles indeed.
Litlebritdifrnt
PS) I make the absolute best “Chocolate mint chip cookies” with chocolate mint. I pick a whole bunch of leaves, but them in my blender with enough water just to blend them and then use that liquid when making a package chocolate chip cookie recipe instead of the required water. The cookies tend to look a little green, but they taste great and hey you are getting a veggie (the mint) when you are eating the cookies.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Peter:
I have a bed under my kitchen window that has Canna, Daylilies and Chocolate Mint in it. They are pretty much all terrorists of the plant world so they sort each other out. Weeds have absolutely no chance in there and come the spring/early summer the canna and daylilies look spectacular. The only “weed” I have had a problem with in that bed is Sweet Autumn Clematis (which I planted in other parts of the yard), which insists on cloaking my Heating/AC unit. I am hoping that the daylilies and canna will kill it.
Bill Arnold
Mint doesn’t survive mowing, so it can take over a bed but not the lawn. (“Can” means that there are some other invasives that do well in combat with mint.) Plant some catnip too. In a year or two you’ll have enough to give shopping bags of it away to other cat lovers.
Gerrie
You guys are hilarious AND smart! How do I go about joining you? I’m a three time loser gardener (insistant on doing it MY way, instead of the proven way). BTW I put in oregano AND mint this yr. both in the open ground. My fate is sealed.
Barry
FYI, my mom planted some mint in a sheltered spot on the south side of a house (southeastern Michigan), and it’s survived on its own for 20 years, but hasn’t left the original spot. I guess that it’s just too cold to spread here.
Jonathan Holbert
@WereBear:
“It is the Tribble of the plant world.”
Best. Comment. This. Week.
gelfling545
You can’t kill mint. It is a horticultural cockroach. Just yank up some pieces with roots and stick it in the ground WHERE YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING IMPORTANT TO YOU GROWING. It will flourish and thrive before long. Just be sure you REALLY want it in that location. It took me 11 years to get rid of mint I planted before I knew better.
David in NY
@Tsulagi
Iris pseudacorus is an alien invasive. It’s driving out our beautiful wild irises and other water plants. If you’ve gotta do something like that, native blue flag iris would work, I think.
David in NY
@Mako
“I’m also a fan of multiflora rose, (nothing keeps the damn kids off the lawn like multiflora rose) but you probably shouldn’t listen to that suggestion.”
And there’s no worse invasive than multiflora rose (though it’s probably too late to fight that particular battle) . Was imported as a good hedge-row plant (cows don’t like it any more than kids do), and now it’s taking over. Not kudzu maybe, but not so far away either.
Mako
@David in NY:
Interesting. I did not know that, thanks for the heads up. Apparently it is only invasive in certain areas like, i guess, NY?
And the multiflora rose bit, that was what Kirk might call hyperbole and others might call childish trolling (nttawwt, this blog has an active troll publishing front page- see DougJ and the whole “Matt Tabbia thinks she’s an accomplished politician” thread and all the hundreds of earnest responses correcting him.)
Mako
@David in NY:
Right on, excellent use of hyperbole! The absoluteness of it rules! Zebra mussels, starlings, rats, rabbits, fishneck waterflea, gypsy moth, water hyacinth, cheatgrass, chestnut blight, dutch elm disease, leafy spurge all take second place to multiflora rose. And let’s not even get started with brown tree snakes and pine borers and asian blackberry cuz multiflora rose is the worst!
chopper
@Kirk Spencer:
if you’re going to do the roots, use young crowns. the older, bigger ones are woody and nasty. young crowns can grow to a large size quickly enough anyways. the roasted & ground roots make a fine tea similar to dandelion root.
the leaves are great animal fodder. high in protein and minerals. if you want to turn a field of kudzu into milk and cheese get a goat. it’ll rip it apart.
Gardening
Mint is very invasive, but it can be an asset to your garden if you controlled its growth.