Thursday, September 18, 2008

Thanks sooooo much, Mary!

So back in May I posted an entry showing some of the plants Mary gave me last summer, and how a couple of them had some unexpected MINT included with them. Well I've been turning a blind-eye to what's been going on ever since then, naively thinking if I ignored it, it'd go away. Ha! Remember that little mint popping up under some chives this past spring?



Yeah, cute, right? Well here's what I dug out this afternoon:


Everything you see in that large cart bed is that one mint plant! Well, aside from a little bit of chives that were being smothered! LOL Seriously - I KNOW there's no way I got it all - the stuff was starting to creep towards the lawn, and I do NOT want to hit it with a lawn mower. (Smells good? Sure! Helps spread it all over the place? You betchya!)

I felt a little guilty - the bees LOVE the stuff now that it's in flower. But don't worry - I'm pretty confident I didn't get every last runner travelling under the mulch, so it'll be back again. In fact, as I was trying to pull it up, SHEETS of mulch were coming up, all woven together with thin hairy roots reaching out from the runners the mint had put out. The stuff is IN-VA-SIVE!

But since I really do like mint, AND I have some ugly spots behind the yard, including the big mound that is more rocks than dirt (where we shoved all the yard crap with the Bobcat) that I couldn't even get nasturtium to grow in - so I hacked away at the top of it with the shovel, made a bit of a depression, and dumped all of the mint parts on top. Then I did sort of a little dance on the whole mess, packing it in, tamping on the dirt/rocks I'd chiselled out, and ran like hell before it could take root and entwine me in it's embrace. I'm sure it'll be fine - I didn't water it or anything, didn't aim for roots pointing down, leaves pointing up, etc - it'll grow.

Trust me.

It'll grow.

1 comment:

Peter said...

What type of mint is it - or do you say?

Lily of the valley is also pretty but invasive. If you have some shady spots to fill, give that a try.