One of the most common and popular aromatic plants is mint. Mint is a plant known for centuries for its pleasant and intense smell, which is why it is used for many purposes. One of them is to use it to flavor different dishes or for infusions, but it also has many good health properties and is also used in cosmetics. For this reason, it is very common to have it grown in pots in our homes. So, if you want to have one in your home, read this article by Ecologist Verde carefully, in it we are going to talk about the potted mint plant care.
Characteristics of the mint plant
Mint (Mentha) is a genus of herbaceous plants perennials of the labiate family, comprising several species and hybrids. The shape of its leaves is as attractive and varied as its flavors. They include plants of very cosmopolitan distribution, which are found almost all over the world.
The Mint it is a plant that has many uses in homes. Serve as a condiment in our recipes, make infusions or give a fresh touch to different desserts. There is a great variety of mints different, such as Tashkent spearmint (Mentha spicata ‘Tashkent’), peppermint (Mentha piperita) or chocolate mint, since its leaves are brown and have a flavor similar to cocoa, the Mentha arvensis or one of the best known, peppermint (Mentha spicata).
Potted peppermint plant care guide
As we said, it is a long-stemmed herbaceous plant that has a high tendency to grow laterally, both in its superficial part and buried or underground, through its stolons or lateral shoots. Therefore, the best thing to grow large and dense is to plant it in the garden floor, but if we do not have the space, we can have it at home, inside or outside, following these Tips for Caring for Potted Mint Plant, you will see that it is a very easy plant to care for.
Light and temperature for mint
In the moment of grow potted mint, you have to look for a place that has a good lighting that allows its growth. The development of the plant needs the contribution of nutrients constantly, so it is important to select a good organic fertilizer or as natural as possible. It is advisable to keep it at a temperature between 15 ºC and 20 ºC during the first stage of its development.
Choosing the right pot for mint
It is also vitally important to select well the pot for the mint, as it will be the place where we are going to grow it, since being a plant that grows horizontally, it is advisable to use a pot that is wide and about 20 cm deep, to grow the mint well. In addition, it is vital that there is good drainage, discover in this other Green Ecologist article all about Drainage in pots.
How to water potted mint
The mint watering It must be regular and abundant, especially in its development period during spring and summer. This also makes the plant flourish at the right time, without being ahead or behind, and that the quality of the aroma and flavor of its leaves is correct. When watering it, we can take advantage of and use a fertilizer that provides the nutrients it needs during the mentioned growing season.
The flowering of mint
The normal thing is that the mint plant blossom at the beginning of summer, a moment that we can take advantage of to cut it and leave it with about five centimeters above the floor of the pot and thus grow again. With the use of fertilizers and watering, we can keep the plant until early fall, but when the cold arrives, the aerial part of the mint will die, although not its underground stems, which will develop again in the spring.
How to prune a mint
Given this horizontal growth, the pruning mint to control the size of this plant in a pot and take advantage of it to sanitize it by removing some leaves, which will favor the growth of new shoots and future blooms.
How to reproduce the mint plant
Now that you know how to take care of a potted mint, you may be interested in knowing how to reproduce it, since when it grows so much it is very easy and it is a plant that should be had at home for all its commented uses, so it does not hurt to have more of one.
At the moment when the pots are very saturated, it is possible to rejuvenate the plant and reproduce mint. This consists of removing some of the roots of the plant. We will cut these roots in half, separating the ends, and we can plant them again using new soil or compost. In addition, mint is a plant that easily reproduces by cuttings. Cuttings are an easy way to reproduce plants in general, so it is about putting about 10 cm stems with wet compost in pots or placing the cuttings in water until they develop roots.
Other tips on potted mint plant care
It's advisable use fresh mint, although if it is not possible, you can also keep the leaves when the plant dies. For this, we can collect the sprouts, wash them well, dry them in a vegetable centrifuge, cut them into small pieces and place them in a container, for example an ice bucket, we will fill this container with water and freeze it. With this way, we can take an ice cube when we need mint to cook.
If what we want is growing different varieties of mintWe must do it separately, since otherwise many of the flavors and aromas of each variety will fade when mixed a lot.
In the pot, we can keep moisture making a mulch on its surface, for example, with pine bark, damp moss or damp, shredded leaves. This will help the water not evaporate so quickly but the roots do not get puddled, if the pot has adequate drainage.
Below you will find a video about this mint care guide.
If you want to read more articles similar to Potted mint plant care, we recommend that you enter our category of Cultivation and care of plants.
