Why does nobody talk about how aggressive mint plants really are?

I was planting some chocolate mint in a raised bed last spring and read this fact from the Royal Horticultural Society website that said mint roots can spread up to 4 feet in one season underground. I pulled up a plant this weekend and found runners going under the fence into my neighbor's yard already. Has anyone else had mint take over their entire garden bed without warning?

2 comments

2 Comments

nathan_hill6011d agoTop Commenter

Wait, you can just pull up a mint plant and it's not dead? I used to think people were just bad at keeping mint contained until I planted some in the ground myself. Had the same thing happen with spearmint - it crept under the bricks and showed up in my lawn three feet away. Now I only grow mint in pots on concrete, learned that lesson the hard way.

taylor.paige11d ago

That creeping under the bricks thing is wild, right? Did you actually dig up the runner or did it just keep coming back from a tiny piece left behind? I've heard mint can regrow from just a fragment of root, so even if you think you got it all, it finds a way. Curious if you had to do a full excavation or if it eventually died after you pulled the main plant.