Mint Condition

Over the years, many of the herbs I planted in my '92-'95 gardening jubilee have "died and withered away" [yes, a nod to Sinead O'Conner] due to adverse reaction to my not-so-salutary neglect. One of the notable exceptions was the spearmint planted in the east. I planted it in the little flower bed on the side of the house to fill space and provide a refreshing, minty aroma near the trash bins.

Anyone who has grown mint himself, or even read about mint cultivation, knows that they are tenacious multipliers. Although these perennials don't propagate by seed, they sent out "runners," basically long, specialized branches that run underground, grow roots, and send up new mint plants at every node. All of my herbal companions advise against planting mint in any area where you might want to pull it out in the future; it is exceedingly prolific, and finding all the underground runners can prove exceedingly difficult. If you miss one, the mint will reappear, even after it appears to have been eradicated.

During the early 90s jubilee, the eastern bed would provide an everlasting home for Mentha spicata, but this month my mother expressed a desire for the crop previously grown in that plot, sweet peas. In all honesty, not-so-salutary neglect has left the mint looking rather raggedy, so I decided to uproot it and put in some sweet peas (though it is at the very tail of the season).

Over ten years time, the mint has managed to foster a veritable ecosystem of its own. While removing the spearmint, I uncovered a dozen fuzzy, black caterpillars, one green caterpillar, several species of spider, earthworms, pincher bugs, roly-polies (pillbugs), leaf hopper, ants, a couple grubs, and a few unidentified arthropods. My savage deforestation and the subsequent homelessness incurred by all those insects provided me a twinge of guilt. It seemed almost an act of betrayal to purge that plot of land of a crop originally intended as the inheritor eternal.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
--Robert Frost