Just realized people keep planting mint wrong in their garden beds

I volunteer at the community garden over on Elm Street. Every year someone new shows up with a mint plant and sticks it right in the shared dirt. Two months later that stuff is everywhere. It took over three whole raised beds last summer. I had to dig out roots for hours with a hand trowel. Mint needs a container or at least a buried barrier. Nobody talks about how aggressive it really is until it's too late. Why do garden centers not warn people about this stuff?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencer_gonzalez118d ago

@gavin_kim nailed it with that world domination comment. Dig up a mint patch and you'll find roots going three feet deep and sideways like some underground conspiracy. Why don't these garden centers slap a biohazard sticker on the damn pots?

gavin_kim18d ago

I heard a master gardener once say the only way to plant mint is to assume it's already plotting world domination. It's wild that garden centers just sell it with a smile and no warning.

aaron88018d agoMost Upvoted

Right? Garden centers act like it's just another herb but that stuff is basically a botanical terminator. I made the same mistake with chocolate mint a few years back and I'm still finding runners popping up in places I never planted it. All I can say is, if you value your garden beds at all, never let that stuff touch open soil without a barrier.