A Gardener’s Confession: I Love Mint

I love mint.

This may not sound controversial to you, but gardeners know what I mean. Our love/hate relationship with this beautiful smelling weed extends so far into the past that the knowledge of planting mint only in pots seems to spring spontaneously into the mind of every new gardener as they begin their first endeavor.

Or perhaps that’s just their neighbor springing over the fence screaming, “Good GOLLY, don’t put that mint in the ground!”

Sure, it’s useful for a cooling sip at the end of a long, hot day of digging. The happy leaves lean into the sun, and a brush of your hand releases a sharp, sweet scent.

However, mint, when allowed its freedom, invades gardens with militant force. Gardeners attempt to contain it in pots, controlling its borders with ruthless regard. Runners leap out of their planters in the dead of night and bury their roots in a new location.

Once escaped, the plants flow across the dirt, rapidly filling any bare spots.

This love affair with mint began when I was in high school. Mint got a foothold behind a shed in the backyard. Each week, we’d mow it down. And each week, the mint grew back. It was my favorite part of the mowing process, the lawnmower ripping into the sweet stems and leaves and surrounding me with that fresh scent. It cooled and refreshed me in the oppressive humidity and unrelenting sun.

Ahhhhhhh!

The summer after we moved to North Carolina, I visited my mother to plunder her garden for free plants. She had a patch of chocolate mint, and we ripped a piece from the dirt. It had a long stem with short, threadlike roots sticking out along its length. “I don’t know how it got here,” she told me. “Plants have a mind of their own.”

I worried that it would survive. She snickered. We potted up two bits of chocolate mint into matching rectangular terracotta planters.

The mint pots flanked the bottom of the stairway up to our deck. I grouped the two chocolate mint plants together on one side with a spearmint plant that I’d gotten from a local nursery on the other. That one had a large pot and soared tall. The chocolate mint lingered low with a top height of about eight inches.

I left them at the bottom of the stairway all year round for a couple of years. The hardy herbs would die back in the winter and reemerge in the summer, providing leaves for a minty limeade concoction (I occasionally add rum and call it a mojito) or a cup of fresh mint tea.

My mother-in-law came over to help us get the house ready for Stephanie’s birthday party in January 2019. At some point, she decided that it was time to get rid of the planters at the bottom of the stairway. I didn’t know exactly what happened, but remember the horror I felt when I went out to discover an empty place where the mint had been. And then I found the empty planters.

I walked through the door, roaring like a dragon. “WHERE ARE THE MINT PLANTS?”

She held her ground. “They were just dirt.”

“The plants are dormant. That’s the mint my mother gave me.” I was so distressed, I could barely speak.

“I can put it back.”

“Please. If you can. I am very upset and trying to keep it together.”

Did I really say that? Just like that? Yes. Yes I did. Like a robot. Because I was trying not to weep and throw a fit because the mint that my mother had given me and that I treasured was GONE!

And that was before my mother was even sick. I don’t even want to imagine what would happen now. I definitely would not contain my upset in robot-talk.

My mother-in-law disappeared outside and returned moments later to tell me that the mint was back. I thanked her and we continued our party preparations. The next day, I added a little dirt and hope to the planters. And then I moved them up onto the deck where I could keep an eye on them.

But, the damage had been done.

The next summer, a little fluff of mint leaves cuddled into the dirt at the bottom of the stairs.

Over the next few years, the mint made a happy home in the rocks and red clay. I know I should eradicate it, but one, my mother gave it to me and now she’s dead which means it’s SACRED mint, so that’s going to be up to the next homeowner. And two, it sits by the garbage can so whenever I pull that can to the roadside, it trundles over the mint and releases that beautiful scent. I cannot recommend a mint patch by the garbage enough! Every once in a while, the lawn guys get excited and weed-eat it to the ground, but the plants spring back up, growing thicker and denser with the attention.

Meanwhile, on the deck, the mint in the pots faltered. Last summer, I coddled them with plant food, but this year, none of them re-emerged. Volunteer moss roses and pansies stole their places.

Time for a plant shuffle! I assumed that the plants had used up all of the soil’s nutrition and so dumped the spent soil into my nearby “flower” garden (quotes only because it’s mostly weeds). A set of planting buckets hang from a purple-painted pallet leaning against the wall of our house. The flowers moved there. After refreshing the dirt in the rectangular pots, I walked down the steps to my little mint patch.

I scratched at the dense clay with a trowel and hand rake, and ripped a section of mint away from the ground. Back on the deck, I plunged it into the now-nutritious soil, planting just below the surface so those roots would have a fighting chance.

That was a couple of weeks ago. The little plants are growing strong, gaining the strength they need for the winter ahead.

Meanwhile, the sacred mint peeks out from its sanctuary, reassuring me that I can always come back for more.

Image courtesy of LA Bourgeois