Mint Warning
Mint is invasive, so if planting straight into the garden, it is advisable to sink a large bottomless container into the ground and plant the mint in the centre, to inhibit the spread.
Peppermint is a sterile hybrid derived from a cross between Mentha aquatica and Mentha spicata. Peppermint is a perennial herb, growing upto 3 feet in height, and propagation is by underground stolons. The stems are usually reddish-purple and smooth.The leaves are fragrant,toothed and hairy on the underside. Flowers are bisexual and zygomorphic pinkish or purple color. Mentha piperita bloom from July through August in whorls and terminal spikes. The fruit consists of four 1-seeded nutlets.The genus Mentha of the mint family Lamiaceae includes about 20 true species, but dozen more varities are found because of hybridization within the species.
Mentha spicata (Spear Mint or Spearmint; syn. K. burkhardtis) is a species of mint probably native to much of Europe and southwest Asia, though its exact natural range is uncertain due to extensive early cultivation. It grows in wet soils.
It is a herbaceous rhizomatous perennial plant growing 30-100 cm tall, with variably hairless to hairy stems and foliage, and a wide-spreading fleshy underground rhizome. The leaves are 5-9 cm long and 1.5-3 cm broad, with a serrated margin. Spearmint produces flowers in slender spikes, each flower pink or white, 2.5-3 mm long and broad.
Apple mint (sometimes called woolly mint) (Mentha suaveolens; syn. M. rotundifolia; syn. Mentha macrostachya Ten.; syn. Mentha insularis is a member of the mint genus Mentha that ranges through southern and western Europe and the western Mediterranean region. It is a herbaceous, upright perennial plant that is most commonly grown as a culinary herb and/or ground cover.
The mint hybrid Mentha × gracilis (syn. Mentha x gentilis L.; syn. Mentha cardiaca (S.F. Gray) Bak.) is known by the common names of gingermint, redmint and Scotchmint. It is a mint species within the genus Mentha. Gingermint hybridizes Mentha arvensis with Mentha spicata.