Mint

Timing that travels

The band above resolves this plant's windows into months for one region. These are the windows themselves, stored against a climate event rather than a date — which is the form that survives being carried to a colder garden, a frost pocket, or next year.

• Plantfrom 4 weeks before to 12 weeks after your last spring frost
  ·source

  Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Mint — planting

  Checked 2026-08-13

  Almost always bought or divided as a plant rather than sown: named mints do not come true from seed.

What kind of herb this is

Herbs are a kitchen grouping rather than a botanical one, and the plants in it want opposite things. This is the one distinction that decides how to treat it.

What happens when it flowers

On a herb this is rarely a problem and rarely nothing. It is the point at which the plant stops being what you grew it for — by a lot, a little, or not at all.

What it is worth to pollinators

Recorded only where the evidence is specific to this plant, because “good for bees” attached to everything means nothing attached to anything.

Conditions it needs

On your soil

Computed by comparing this plant's recorded requirements against each soil's recorded characteristics. A recorded horticultural fact overrides the comparison where GrowingHQ holds one.

Not sure which you have? Four hand tests will settle it.

Space and spacing

Value to wildlife

Recorded only where the evidence names a resource and the months it is available. Most plants flower; that on its own is not what this section is about.

Where and how you can grow it

Each way of growing is assessed separately, and “not assessed” is a real answer rather than a gap we have filled in with a guess.

Growing it

Is it worth putting under cover?

Whether it will grow there is on the methods table above. This is whether the space is well spent, which is a different question and usually the one being asked.

Growing it without soil

Nearly anything can be grown in a soilless system by somebody with enough equipment. The useful question is whether it is worth it, in which technique, and what goes wrong.

Harvesting

What goes wrong

What to look for

Views that settle something a description cannot. Where the photograph has not been taken yet, the description of what it will show is here instead — which is the useful half of it either way.

• The runners are the reason mint is grown in a container.

Grown with, grown after, grown instead

Every relationship states its mechanism. A pairing nobody can explain is a pairing nobody has checked, and it does not go in.

• Alternative toOregano
  Both are Lamiaceae used as culinary herbs, but they suit opposite conditions: mint for damp shade, oregano for dry sun. A grower whose herb bed has both situations should split them rather than treating either as a general-purpose herb.

  ·source

  Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Herb growing

  Checked 2026-08-13

Safety and edibility

• Legal requirementGarden mint is not a listed invasive species in the UK and may be grown freely, but statutory guidance is clear that garden plants must not be allowed to spread into the wild. Mint runners travel into neighbouring ground, and material tipped with garden waste establishes readily where it was not wanted.
  ·source

  Legal or label requirementmoderate confidence

  • GOV.UK guidance — UK Government: Prevent the spread of harmful invasive and non-native plants

  Checked 2026-08-13

  Do not tip mint runners onto open ground or into hedgerows; compost them in a closed heap or dispose of them with garden waste collection.