Mint disaster :-o

About a month ago I was pruning round some newly appeared mint sproutlings before they could be crowded out by invasive grasses & demolished by resident slugs & snails. I had about 3 plants come up from last year - one was gobbled up by the slugs but the other two I managed to ring round with copper tape, just in time.

The surviving plants were now slug-proofed but one was doing better than the other one, which was being swamped by grasses, so I had to start pruning round both with scissors, and then disaster struck, I accidentally pruned the smallest mint; it's stalk was green I couldn't sort it from the grass.

Was so horrified at what I'd done, I put the pruned plant in water, remembering an old trick to split the stem, so that the plant couldn't seal it. Then I placed it on a window sill, not knowing what to do.

For several days it just stayed as it was, but it didn't wilt. On about the fourth day I decided to place the pruned plant into a small pot of peat, supported by a stick, since it had no root - nothing.

Kept it watered - same thing - no change, it just stayed there in the earth. The lowest leaves went brown and crumpled, but the upper leaves remained green. Then after a week I noticed the stripling plant was about 1 spindly centimetre taller. A day later I took the potted pruning and put it back

 

Plant still going strong.

Of this post I can only see "A day later I took the potted pruning and put it back...", the rest of it disappears

 

The whole post is visible to me. I wouldn't be sure the plant has survived yet - sometimes they just keel over a bit later to wind you up! I would have left it in water to root...

 

So they can root from being pruned then, please?

 

This tends to support my practice. That from the gardening books etc. Gardening is an ever forever learning curve. Enjoy.

 

I took over an allotment this year and had a whole bed full of mint (whoever had it before me couldn't have realised it spreads like wildwire). But I've taken many cuttings and put into pots with soil, for friends, and they have taken root and keep growing and growing! I'm sure yours will too

 

Thanks. Am amazed - you just snip a plant & it grows roots! :-o

 

Got to say mint is probably the easiest plant to grow from cuttings.

About 5 days in water this time of the year does it.
It likes a damp shady spot I find unlike most herbs.

 

Noticed bits of the rescued mint were starting to disappear. Went out last night to find 2 enormous slugs devouring the plant, I pulled them off & threw them over a fence. If I hadn't gone out there would have been nothing left of that plant by daybreak. They'd crawled up right over the slug tape, they just ignored it. I've ordered nematodes - what else can you do?

 

Unfortunately they may well come back under the fence. Nematodes are good alternatives depend how squeamish you are. Some people put salt on them, other people use an old pair of scissors to cut them in half or collect in a container and add boiling water. You can get iron phosphate based slug pellets which are more environmentally friendly than the blue metaldehyde ones.

 

Thanks. Went into double-disaster mode: have a mister filed with saline & have now ringed the rescued mint round with cut lengths of bramble, which will hopefully hold them off till the nematodes arrive. Don't want to dose the earth with salt where possible. Think what's happening is that in persistent rain the copper salts are washed off the copper tape, so the protection is gone. Wouldn't use slug pellets because of the blackbirds. If I find hordes more slugs I'm afraid they will go down the plumbing, it's too dangerous staggering around on a wet lawn with a torch & bucket in the dark.