Episode 4 Mint
Latin name: Mentha
This is a photograph of Anya’s Great Grandmother who lives in Kyiv. I loved that Anya had such wonderful childhood memories of a garden where her great grandmother would plant anything from strawberries to apple and peach trees. Anya told us: “she’s a really kind and good person.”
If you want to read Lally’s book then it is called War Gardens - A Journey Through Conflict in Search of Calm by Lalage Snow. You can find out more about her work here.
Pam Orchard is the CEO of The Connection at St Martins. A friend who reads this blog tells me that she happened to be walking across Trafalgar Square when that flash mob took place and you can see it here.
Jean Levy holds a National Collection of Mentha and you can find the details here. She has 250 types of mentha, collected from everywhere she goes. I am sure she would love to hear from you if you happen to know of an ‘elderly’ patch of mint, especially the white flowering ones. “The mint that I'm always looking for is the old mint, the mint from somebody's old garden.”
So a brief reminder of the history of mint.
In the UK, much of it was brought across by the Romans, although I think there were existing species over here anyway. But spearmint itself was brought across by the Romans, they say. I've got a very elderly mint that I found in a dew pond in an area which was close by a Roman settlement, pure spearmint, a spearmint which is so sweet and tender that it's quite clearly different to the things that you buy in Sainsbury's and Marks and Spencer's which have been highly cultivated and have lost a lot of that sweetness.
In answer to the question what is the difference between mint and spearmint?
Mint is a general term because mint can be any one of spearmint, ginger mint, peppermint, there are different varieties and they're all joined together in what they call the mint family. But there's a huge network, a genetic network of different species.
List of the plants mentioned in this episode
Mentha spicata - Spearmint also called garden mint and green mint amongst other names. Good in Mojito, in Pimms and on potatoes. Spearmint smells like chewing gum.
Mentha x piperita - is Peppermint. (The x means it's a long-standing hybrid). Varieties are written like this M. x piperita 'Mitcham' or M. x piperita 'After Eight' (After Eight mint) or M. x piperita 'crispa' (Curly peppermint). You can use it on top of ice cream and it’s nice to chew. Peppermint smells like toothpaste. If used in aromatherapy its regarded as a stimulant.
M. x piperita citrata is the basic perfumed Eau de Cologne mint. Smells like perfume. Lovely to dry and make into potpourri.
Varieties of M. x piperita citrata include M. x piperita citrata 'Lime' (Lime mint ... the one that's best in Gin and Tonic) and M. x piperita citrata 'Basil' (Basil mint).
Mentha suaveolens var. variegata - also know as Pineapple mint and a variegated one often used by restaurants.
I asked Jean what she would recommend to me for a small ‘mint patch’ to be grown together in a large pot
Three mints would be enough in the pot. The three I suggest look very different: M. suaveolens variegata, the pineapple mint is green and white and often quite rambling and good for decorating salads and desserts. The M. x piperita 'Mitcham' is a strong black peppermint with very dark leaves good for making peppermint tea. And a good variety of spearmint to go with these other two would be a Moroccan mint, M. spicata 'Moroccan' which is strongly spearminty and recommended for 'freshmint tea'.
How to Grow Mint
Can you take a cutting?
Yes just find someone with a mint plant and then take a small cutting. You can usually be sure of actually rooting it by simply putting it in water and about two weeks later, you've got little tiny adventitious roots coming out. This is vegetative propagation basically, so what you're doing is you're getting something which is absolutely genetically identical to the thing you picked. Some of the lavender mints and some of the furry silver mints, they do not root very well in water. So what you do then is: ‘layering’. You lay a piece of the stem along the ground and hold it down with a peg or something like that and tissues root into the soil.
Would you grow it in a pot or in the garden?
Two things. Firstly, people believe that mint grows everywhere and you know, you can't really control it. That’s not true of the mints you ‘want’ to grow everywhere! The only mint that grows everywhere is the one that you are really fed up with! But the other thing about growing Mint in the garden - if you want to keep an eye on it, it disappears over the winter. All mint just goes underground and overwinters in that dormant state. So I grow everything in pots. I have got a lot in the garden, but that's my backup - the garden.
Pam and Anya’s mint just re-emerging after its dormant Winter state, underground!
What kind of aspect do they need?
They say that mints will grow in a shade, it won't grow in full shade particularly well. I mean, it's an easy plant and any of the most common mints are very easy to grow, really, they will grow in the soil, they will grow in a pot, they'll grow on the windowsill. One of the things I have done in the past is I've made a bed of mixed mints so I've kind of put the peppermint and the spearmint and the tall mints and the short mints and so on all muddled together in the bed and let them all grow up amongst each other. People don't realize how splendid mint can look until they actually see it growing like that.
How much watering?
It does need a lot of water and it doesn't dry out well. It will come back again because its major life form is underneath the soil in rhizomes. But if you want a mint to look good you just keep it well watered, don't overwater. But it's difficult to overwater mint, don't let it stand in water unless it's water mint and then it likes to stand in water but that smells horrible, water mint is quite a disgusting smell.
Jean has rescued many a mint plant that she has found dried out and forgotten, so do keep an eye out for mints you too can rescue and add to your new or existing collection.
Thank you so much for listening to this new podcast. If you have enjoyed this episode of Our Plant Stories and you have listened to it on a podcasting app, I love it if you could take a moment to rate and review it on that app! It will just help us to grow the podcast and find other kindred spirits.
ps I am now the proud and very excited mum of a new mint pot - made using Jean’s recommendations sourced from the National Herb Centre.
