Grow Mint NON-STOP (Without It Taking Over)

Who doesn’t love the fresh zingy taste of mint? It’s so easy to grow and there are many amazing types to enjoy. Just make sure you follow the essential tips that Ben shares in this video to ensure an endless supply and prevent it taking over your garden!

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Mint is one of the easiest herbs to grow, but 
it’s also one of the easiest to get wrong. I’ve seen it completely take over gardens, no wonder it’s got a reputation 
for being a bit of a thug. Today, I’m going to show you how 
to grow vibrant, flavor-packed mint without it getting out of hand. Get it right and you’ll have an endless 
supply of mint for teas, salads, pestos, and of course, mojitos! So, let’s begin our minty quest by looking at the 
sorts of conditions that mint really thrives in. Now, mint is an incredibly versatile herb, both 
in the garden and in the kitchen, of course, and it thrives in any moderately 
fertile, moist soil or potting mix. Mint does really well in a sunny spot, but 
will also thrive in a part-shaded spot, so, if you’ve got a niggly shadier corner, 
then mint could grow really well there. And in fact, if you’re in a hot climate, 
then some shade may really do it proud to help it hold on to moisture for a bit longer. Mint is a lush, fleshy herb 
and naturally quite thirsty, so getting enough moisture to it is important. In containers, you’ll need to keep 
a close eye and water regularly, but in the ground here, I hardly 
ever have to water my mint. In fact, this mint here has never been watered 
and it’s thrived even in this hot summer. Now I’m taking cuttings here from material 
that hasn’t got any flowers on it, that’s important, these are really 
beautiful for all sorts of insect life, but for cuttings we need clean vegetative growth. So I have my material to work with and the next 
job is just to trim them up into a cutting size. Now, as I said, they want to 
be about 10-15cm or 4-6in long and I make a cut just at the 
bottom, just below a leaf node where the leaf joins the main 
stem like that, that’s perfect. Now, these are losing a lot 
of water through the leaves, which is quite stressful when 
you’ve not got any roots, so the next job is just to 
trim our cutting up like this by removing the majority of the leaves like that. And most of the new roots that will form 
will come from these little leaf nodes here. So, let’s trim them all up and then 
I’ll show you what to do with them next. So, here are my prepared cuttings. Now, you want to work fairly quickly in 
warm weather as they will start to wilt so I’m just going to pop them in the water there. Now, you’ve got two ways of rooting them, 
one is to simply leave them in the water, so just make sure the leaves 
are sticking out like that and then put this somewhere warm and sunny 
and the roots will quite quickly appear. The other option is to just 
root them in potting mix. Now I’m using an all purpose potting mix, I’m 
not going to bother to do anything with it, no sieving or screening and 
I’m also not going to add any hormone rooting powder or gel 
which you sometimes do with cuttings. Mint is so easy to propagate and I just 
stick it in like that and it’s job done. Growing your cuttings in water is 
certainly the lowest maintenance option because you simply need to change 
out the water every now and then and then pot on the cuttings once they are rooted. But growing in potting mix like this means 
you can delay potting them up a bit longer and let the roots grow out a bit more. It’s 
really up to you which method you prefer. The great thing about mint is 
that it is so easy to propagate and roots so readily it doesn’t 
really matter. That’s about perfect. Now, this will go in a relatively 
bright but fairly shaded spot and this, as I said, will be in the sun 
because it’s got plenty of water to draw on. Now, there’s no bag going over 
this or anything like that, I just need to water it and set it on 
its way and then it’s really good to go. Our cuttings in water can be potted 
into their own pots individually once they’ve got many more roots and are 
looking like they’ve put on fresh growth. And the same with your potting mix 
cuttings, once you see fresh growth and the evidence of roots at the bottom, 
you can jiggle it out of the pot, tease apart your cuttings, and 
pot them on into their own. Now, I took some cuttings about two weeks ago, and I wanted to show you the progress of them. You can see here there’s already some 
brilliant white roots coming out of the stems, they’re not quite ready to 
pot on and grow on just yet, but it’s really encouraging 
to see them starting to root. Now, if you don’t have any mint, then do 
ask a minty neighbor for some of theirs, or just buy yourself a packet of mint. Now, this is really fresh stuff 
here, really good condition, and it costs about 50p or just over half a dollar and there’s some really lovely 
material here to work with. Look at that, I can trim this up in exactly 
the same way as I did with my apple mint. Making cuts, removing the lowest leaves and 
then growing it on in water or potting mix. Perfect. What I love about mint is the many, 
many different types you can grow. Let’s take a look at a few of them. Your classic mints are your 
peppermint or spearmint. Just like your apple mint here, these are great 
for drinks as well as things like ice creams. Every garden needs some of this stuff. And then there are the many mints 
named after what they smell like. Now, we’ve looked at apple mint, 
but there’s also banana mint, pineapple mint, orange mint, and then 
something like this here, this is lime mint and if I pick off a leaf and smell it, 
oh, it really does smell like lime. I wish this was smellovision – 
this is a real feast for the nose. Then there’s chocolate mint with its 
beautifully dark, almost mahogany colored stems and of course, irresistible chocolatey scent, perfect for a chocolate 
and mint ice cream perhaps. And finally, let me show you this guy here, 
it looks like a creeping thyme, doesn’t it? But this is Corsican mint, loves a lovely 
moist and actually very shaded spot and would look beautiful creeping 
out over paving slabs, for example. Why not grow a selection to enjoy? Mints can honestly form a whole 
herb collection in their own right. But what about it spreading? I hear you 
ask. Won’t mint take over my garden? Well, come over here and let me 
show you what this is all about. Now, look at this mint, it’s absolutely 
bursting to get out of this pot, look at it. And if I take off the pot, we can have a 
closer look and see what this is all about. Here you can see the thick mass of roots, 
this is desperate to get potted on. But look at these guys here, they’re 
like little creeping ground level stems, these are the rhizomes and what happens 
is these will spread out on the ground, produce roots (there’s a tiny one there 
in fact), root, produce a new clump, and then carry on on their travels. And this spreading, creeping 
habit is what makes it actually a really convenient, 
low maintenance ground cover. Now, you can always grow it somewhere 
that you can easily keep it in control. This is in my lawn here, which is long 
overdue a cut, so when I come through and cut along here, well, these 
guys will be naturally cut off and the plant will be kept in trim. But you have to admire the resilience of 
mint and its determination, what a trooper. But really, the very simplest way to contain mint 
is to grow it in a container, a literal container. Now, this certainly needs potting on into its 
own bigger container, so let’s go and do that. We’ve got a choice of pots for our mint, 
now, the simplest one is a plastic pot, it’ll need watering less often, but a terracotta 
pot like this looks so much more attractive, but it will wick out the moisture a bit 
more, so you’ll need to water it more often. A solution is to line it 
with some sort of plastic, making sure to punch a hole in 
the bottom for the drainage. And then there’s something like 
a beautiful glazed pot like this, which is a good, sort of halfway house compromise. I’m going to go for a terracotta 
pot and because it’s late summer and plenty of rain is on the cards, 
I’m just going to leave it like it is. Now, I’m using just an all purpose potting mix, this has actually got a mix 
with a bit of soil in it, which will help to reduce 
the time between waterings. Now, look at this, it’s really rootbound, so 
I’m going to be really quite rough with it to get these roots out into the fresh compost. You can just dig like this, looks a bit 
violent, but this is absolutely fine. And we’ll just stimulate new 
fresh roots to go into our mix. Looks a bit of a state, 
doesn’t it? But that’s perfect. And then just pot it up as normal. 
And we’ll trim it down in a bit. It’s a handsome looking plant, but this 
is a bit too lanky and not a good shape. So, what I’m going to do is cut it down. Now, if you come here, I’ll show 
you what we’re going to aim for. You can see there’s lots of fresh growth 
at the bottom, this is really great, but I’m also going to cut these 
tall stems down to a leaf node, and if you look closely, you can 
see two little shoots either side, so, these will replace the stem 
that’s cut and produce two new stems. And by doing that, we’ll get a 
slightly bushier and more compact mint that’ll look a lot better. It seems a bit ruthless, but really this 
is going to do the mint so much good and create such a handsome plant within 
another couple of weeks once it re-shoots. I love, just love, the resilience of 
mint. I think if the bombs were to drop, mint, and cockroaches maybe, would be the only 
things that would sort of continue surviving and this would do it with a big 
old smile on its face as well. Okay, there’s the main stems cut back, 
now we’ve got these rhizomes here, I’m just going to trim it back down so 
they sit within the confines of the pot just to keep it tidy, but these might root 
as well and kind of help it all bush out. Now with these rhizomes, what I could do is I 
could just reduce it down to something like that, strip off the leaves and then put that in water 
and then again, I get more plants. Fantastic. None of this is going to go to waste, 
I’m going to love cooking with this. And here is our finished trimmed plant, 
now, this will be good for a whole season in a pot like this, but after maybe a 
year, it’s going to be a bit big for it. So, you can pot it on up a size 
or split the plant to grow on. Well, we’ve looked at how to create 
new plants by taking cuttings and how to pot on existing mint, but 
perhaps the easiest way to grow more mint, even easier than rooting cuttings in 
water, is to simply split them apart to divide them to create new plants. Dividing plants isn’t difficult, and I’m going to show you how with 
this other lime mint I’ve got here and again, we’ve got the same problem with 
this incredible root-bound nature here. But if you come closely, you can 
see that it’s spread out a bit and I reckon I can split this apart into 
certainly two, possibly three separate plants. Now, mint, as we’ve seen, is incredibly tough, so I can get in here with a knife 
and literally carve it down. Just got a serrated knife from the kitchen 
here and it’s gone through beautifully. Now, those are fine to pot on as they 
are, but I reckon I’m going to go again and just feed through and you can 
see there’s a natural split here, so I’m going to get the knife in and 
carry on with my delicate operation, or rather not so delicate. So something like this is absolutely perfect now, I probably should have done 
this before I split them, but just cutting them back now just to 
make them a bit easier to work with. That’s perfect. And then to pot it 
on, it gets its own pot, of course and I’m using the same potting mix 
as before, just a soil-based mix and no great shakes or special treatment, 
in it goes and firm down like that. Splitting or dividing mint is a great 
way to breathe new life into your plants by giving plants more space to grow into 
and stimulating lots of lovely fresh growth. Hard pruning plants is a great way to 
breathe new life into established mint plants and it’s a great way of removing any 
plants that are heavily diseased or damaged or got pest or disease problems. Just cut plants right back to the 
ground to give them a new lease of life and this will also encourage air 
flow, which is never a bad thing. The very best time though to give 
your mint a really good general prune is in the winter or rather 
late winter going into spring. All the old stems will have died back and you 
can just cut them right back down to ground level and let the new shoots, which should be in there 
right at the base, grow on and replace them. It’s a fantastic way to keep your 
plants in (ahem) mint condition. The best thing about mint and 
indeed many herbs like say oregano, is that the more you harvest them, the 
more you encourage them to bush out and you get even more harvests. The best time to harvest is ideally mid to late 
morning when the foliage is still nice and fresh, but the leaves have dried 
off from any night moisture. The flavor compounds are often at 
their highest in the morning as well. So, keep on harvesting and you’ll 
get plenty of new bushy growth and keep plants looking in tip-top shape. Regular harvesting will also keep stems 
from becoming too tough and woody. Now, once you’re finished harvesting, you can 
give it a good water, that’s what I tend to do. Not with my in ground mint, 
but within pots like this. But if you’re unsure, stick a finger in and 
if it’s dry, well give it a good water. Now, I don’t really need to give 
any further nutrition to my mint until maybe the very, very end of winter 
when that new growth shows through. And then I can always just sprinkle 
on a general purpose organic fertilizer and just tickle it into the foliage, down into the 
crown so it’s not sitting on the foliage itself. With handfuls of harvested mint to enjoy, 
the question is what to do with it all or rather what can’t you do with it? Pestos, salads, teas and cocktails, 
smoothies, garnishes and infused water, bath soaks and facial treatments and the rest. Store just cut mint in the fridge, ideally 
in some sort of tupperware or something. Or for bigger bunches like this, just pop 
it in the water to keep it nice and fresh. And look, this one’s even flowering, so it’s 
going to add a touch of food for the soul as well. For more on propagating herbs by cuttings or division,
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