Herbal enthusiasts will quickly fall in love with mint plants. And mint will fall in love with your garden, as well. Should you decide to plant it, then consider yourself appropriately warned; it will swiftly spread to all parts of it. This inherent vigor of the Mint plant makes the tough perennial a wonderful, impossible to fail with starter plant for those who are just beginning to learn to garden, as well as for any individual who requires a hardy, attractive, and quick growing cover for their ground. This article goes through the step by step directions for growing mint plants.
Contents
Materials and Items Necessary for the Project:
– Mint Plants
– Gardening Trowels
– Potting Soil
– Planting Pots and Containers
– Drainage Tiles Made from Clay
Choosing Your Site and Purchasing Your Mint Plants
You should select a good location in your garden where your mint plants can grow unhindered, so that they do not overwhelm the remaining plants living in your garden. Mint is most content in partial sun, partial shade, as well as in modestly rich, moist, and partially acidic soil. It will grow alright in most any sunlight, ranging from unblocked sun on to complete shade, as well as in practically whatever soil type that you possess in your garden or pot. You should purchase your mint plants from the local nursery to plant them in earlier spring, once the ground has thawed sufficiently to be effectively worked. As a warning, like with some other types of herbs, Mint does not germinate well from seeds, and little plants are the best way to successfully get started.
Planting Your Mint Plants
In order to obtain a thick and thriving ground cover, you should plant mint in the most ideal conditions for it to grow well. If you wish to hinder its enthusiastic, run-away growth tendencies, then you ought to consider providing it with a less perfect place to grow. As an example, it will grow less well in full on sunlight, as well as in soil which proves to be drier.
The mint plants should generally be placed a good twelve to eighteen inches apart from one another, although the exactly appropriate spacing does depend on the particular variety in question. If you wish to dominate their usually prolific spreading tendencies, then you might place them in containers without bottoms and then sink these into the dirt. Clay tiles for draining, which are approximately six to eight inches long and ten inches deep, are most ideal.
Maintaining Your Mint Plants
Until the Mint plants become firmly established, you should maintain a moist soil base. To keep these plants healthy and bushy, you ought to pinch off the stem ends. When gardening season draws to a close, be sure to prune back the plants to almost the level of the ground, then top dress them with compost. In the growing season, you can harvest sprigs whenever you require them for cooking or seasoning.
Helpful Suggestions and Cautions
Every variation of mint will thrive in a container. In fact, this is the only way to hinder them from taking over every available patch of ground in sight. A pot for Mint plants ought to be minimally twelve inches diameter and containing potting soil which has been enriched by compost. Mint requires frequent watering and a fish emulsion fertilizer to do extremely well. You may divide the plants once each two or three years.
Additional Information:
How To Do Things: How To Grow Mint Plants
Gardening Know How: How to Grow Mint Plants in your Garden
