What is wrong with mint and mint relatives? Thank you.

elodieunderglass:

eminenceofiyanola:

osunism:

hello-hayati:

voidbat:

nehirose:

semianonymity:

elodieunderglass:

They’re lovely, but they MUST be kept in a pot, or a raised bed, or on a good-quality leash with a chest harness, because mint and its cousins spread like… IDEK, like a rash. Like dandelions. They’re tough, hardy and highly motivated. Even a tiny root fragment will suddenly turn into a Mint Tree if you don’t tear it up. I swear I’ve seen new plants popping up from BURIED SCRAPS OF LEAF. Once they’re in the ground they establish a beachhead and spawn secretly, possibly through osmosis. I cannot advise you to stick a mint plant in the ground unless you are a bold and unconventional disciplinarian.

The joke is that after running around after the mint like a spaniel chasing a whack-a-mole for a year, Dr Glass then planted a plant that would do the same thing.

Great plants, hard to kill, keep them in a pot (ESPECIALLY where invasive)

I would really recommend against planting mint in raised beds, and also, if in a pot, DO NOT PUT THE POT ON SOIL. The pot needs to be on rock or concrete. Otherwise the roots will head straight for freedom through the drainage holes, and you will Never Be Free.

of course, on the other hand, if you’re at all inclined to pettiness expressed via herbology, mint makes a GREAT vehicle for plant-based vengeance.

i have absolutely thrown mint roots into the perfectly manicured lawns of people i hate.

An ever growing mint plant appearing in my lawn would seem like the opposite of a problem to me?

They’re invasive, which means if they’re anywhere in your garden or manicured areas they could ruin the other plants, I think? But yeah I’d love to have a damn mint plant in my yard sounds ideal.

Has anyone ever thought of just having a lawn of mint instead of grass? Like how you have moss lawns?

… I am not judging!! but I don’t think the people in the notes who are like “oh a mint lawn would be lovely!” have met mint!

You know what would be a lovely herbal lawn? Chamomile. Because it’s a damn compact, densely-growing, hardy, winter-green perennial that’s springy underfoot, smells nice when you walk on it, and has some basic manners. Lawn chamomile is plushy and soft and produces tiny pretty daisy-looking flowers. It naturally stays at pretty much the height you would want grass to be, and then you can cut it and it goes “fair enough.”

Mint is not any of those things. Mint is leggy, patchy, muddy and rampageous. It grows randomly and fitfully. It bullies other plants. It sends runners into the neighbor’s houses and across the street and it barks at the postman. Your mint lawn would look like a poorly tended graveyard AND THEN IN THE WINTER IT WOULD DIE, DRAMATICALLY, and ROT
THERE. It would outcompete native plants and eat your vegetable garden alive. It is so wet and stalky that it would be dreadful to trim, and when you trimmed it, it would scab over and sulk. It would refuse to grow where it was put (the lawn) and would instead show up in places you don’t want it (the patio, the sidewalk, your intrusive thoughts.) IT IS AN INVASIVE PLANT, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO YOUR FAMILY

It’s like asking why people don’t make lawns out of cabbages, or hyenas, or the cold virus. BECAUSE THEN IT WOULDN’T BE A LAWN OR A GARDEN