The Inevitable Return of the Mint
A few years before she died, my mother and I spent a day going around her property and selecting plants from her garden for me to take to my garden and plant there. Two survived through the years, the Christmas Cactus and a puddle of mint at the base of our deck steps. When we packed our car to make the move from North Carolina, I made the decision to hold onto the Christmas Cactus, but the mint had to be left behind.
Frankly, it made sense. Once we got settled, I could return to the family home and grab another piece. I occasionally worry that it won’t be there but…who am I kidding? Besides being prolific, it’s sneaky. My mother originally planted the mint in pots but the plants escaped. Mint appeared in the bed at the roadside, in a clump beside the garage, and beside the back fence. “Mint walks on its own,” she told me. “It decides where it wants to be.”
But still, leaving that mint behind snipped a tiny wound in my heart. And while I was soothed by adventure and freedom, that small cut didn’t start to heal until Farmer Gui planted mint in a little plot of dirt beside the back door of the house on the golf course.
We call him Farmer Gui when Gui is being our gardener. Each summer, he signed up for allotments, dug the ground and maintained the veggies. And that meant we got to enjoy fresh cucumbers, zucchini, potatoes, tomatoes and all kinds of wonderful fresh produce.
With this gardening enthusiasm, I was surprised when he inserted that mint plant directly into the soil. All gardeners that I know always demanded that mint be planted ONLY in a pot. And my first instinct was to charge outside, wrench his trowel from his hands and frantically dig the plant out of the soil. But then I stopped myself. This house could use that wild abundant mint energy. Besides, he’d planted in a little area that was just dirt, even in the raucous flourish of late spring.
And just touching the leaves and smelling that fresh scent on my fingers throughout that first summer mended that tiny heart wound.
The mint flourished and spread across the bare dirt, filling the space between the HVAC unit and back steps. We added it to drinks and made tea and popped it into the occasional salad. But then, in the fall, we walked out to pluck some for a recipe and found it gone. Strange holes and bare earth confronted us. Did someone pull it up? Maybe a deer ate it? Was it gone forever?
Nope. The next year it rose even stronger. And this year the mint flourished early with an abundance that allowed Monika to construct an absolutely transformative mint pesto to accompany our leg of lamb for Easter dinner.
But now it’s time for us to leave this place and, since we’re only moving across town, I decided to take some of Farmer Gui’s mint with us.
A spoon from the silverware drawer and a pot holding a dead rosemary from last summer were my only tools. After the rosemary got plopped into a discreet place in the border to compost, a bit of soil was left in the bottom of the pot. I ruffled it around for ease of the mint roots.
I walked into the garden bed, selected a promising plant and pulled gently. Several branches came up from the running root. I selected my branches and chopped the runner off just past them. After arranging the plant in the pot, I tossed more dirt in and shook the whole pot so the soil would filter through the roots and leave no air pockets. With the pot filled, a little water finished the process. Then back outside to sit on the patio between the steps and our multi-tiered planter for a little protection from the wind as it regained its strength.
Trauma-induced drooping took place for a couple of days but by the third, the mint stood tall and content in its new pot. Roots must be forming. This mint will survive!
Didn’t I already know it would survive? After all, mint bounces back. It grows sweet and strong. Left alone, mint rushes to spread through borders and lawns and fields and brambles and hedges, taking over all the space that it can. With just the bare minimum of attention, it flourishes and provides fresh leaves for jelly, pesto, zingy salads, refreshing tea and summery cocktails.
And now this mint gets to travel with us, a souvenir of the healing and adventure of our first home in Ithaca.
Thanks, Farmer Gui! You knew just what I needed.
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