How to grow mint from cuttings is extremely simple anyone could successfully do this. In this tutorial, we shall be growing mint in pots, an approach suitable for both indoors and outdoors growing.
There is every reason to be growing mint. Mint (Mentha) is a wonderful herb that has well known health benefits. These benefits include but are not limited to treating well known health problems such as common cold, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) among others.
The botanical name for mint is mentha which in fact is a group of as many as 20 species of a mint variety such as peppermint and spearmint.
Growing your mint is a fantastic way to ensure ongoing and endless supply of this herb. Using the method I share with you in this article, you are guaranteed a steady supply of this wonderful herb for application in a variety of culinary dishes or simply as a remedy for different health problems that may arise.
When cooking use mint dried or fresh in desserts, marinades, meat or vegetarian dishes. Mint adds a fresh minty flavour to dishes. It is an absolutely worth while herb to have around the home. The best part is you can grow it from a pot plant on your window sill or kitchen counter.
The quickest way to grow mint is to propagate it from an existing mint plant in the form of a cutting. Sources of mint cuttings include friends, farmer’s market and even supermarkets vegetable section where its possible to find mint cuttings still on stems.
So in this tutorial, I take you on a step by step journey which I used to quickly get a viable mint plant going.
Also learn how to grow other vegetables from scraps such as Chinese cabbage, potatoes, regular onions and green onions a.k.a. spring onions.
Step 1 – Get mint cuttings from main plant
You may get your mint cuttings from store bought mint or by simply propagating mint from runners.
In my case, the journey began with my wife bringing home a bunch of uprooted mint plants. My next step was to identify and separate a good number of stems with leaves on them as shown below.
Step 2 – Insert mint cuttings in water to grow roots
In order to successfully propagate your mint plants you need to have it grow roots first before planting it in soil. I highly recommend this approach. See below on Common problems associated with growing mint from cuttings. So next I took two small sized glasses (which can be empty jam jars), filled them with water and inserted my mint cuttings as shown below.
I understand some gardeners skip this step and plant the cuttings directly in soil avoiding the water stage altogether. In this case I opted to grow the roots in water first before transferring the mint cutting into the growing pot.
After putting the mint cuttings in the glasses as shown above, I set the glasses aside to sit several days whilst the rooting process took place. This is a waiting game naturally calling for some patience just like other plants. Altogether the waiting lasted some good two weeks before I achieved what’s shown below. During this period the glasses sat in a room with light and I constantly topped up the water as it evaporated/sucked up by the cuttings.
Shown above are the roots fully mature on the cuttings. This is a clear signal that the cutting now has viable life of its own and is ready for planting in soil.
Growing mint in water only…
Before we move on to discuss the next step, I may as well mention here that if you prefer to grow your mint cutting in water only there won’t be need to continue to next step below.
What you may want to do instead is to find a more permanent vertical container that you can fill with water and grow your mint there using water only; preferably a transparent container so you can visually monitor the state of your plant.
Take note that your water will need regular changing to avoid it growing slimy and even smelly. This would be the downside of growing your mint in water only.
Step 3 – Prepare a pot for planting
So next, I took a pot plant as shown below which I got from my local gardening supplies warehouse.
The pot plant has holes beneath to allow easy water drainage. If you are using a makeshift pot plant and not one commercially sourced for this purpose as shown here, ensure you put some holes below your container to achieve the same effect.
Step 4 – Prepare garden soil to plant mint cuttings
Next I took some garden soil and mixed it with horse manure which I purchased for this purpose, since I own no horses! Without horse manure you could also use chicken manure or any suitable compost. The point is to ensure your mint plant has access to some excellent nutrients.
Once you fill your pot with some nutrient rich soil, before any planting commences water it well until the water starts draining out the bottom. This is a good sign that your soil is well soaked. Next take a stick and dig a hole in the middle of the pot in preparation for planting your cutting. This is shown below.
Step 5 – Plant your mint cutting in soil
I then took my mint cutting and placed it in the hole that I created in the middle of the pot ensuring that I didn’t damage the roots. Keep in mind that at this point the soil is heavily soaked in water making the roots comfortable once they get into contact with the soil in this their new home.
After inserting the cutting by the roots into the hole, I proceeded to close the hole with some surrounding soil securing the cutting firmly in place as shown below. I also added a bit more soil as topping to neaten up things. Below is how the plant looks from the side…
To collect the water that drains from the bottom, I placed the pot in a tray that comes with the pot. This allows the pot to sit in doors on your kitchen counter or window sill without causing a mess.
In a few more weeks mature mint leaves were ready for harvest as and when needed.
Common problems associated with growing mint from cuttings.
The following are a some problems that you may encounter when growing your mint using cuttings.
Mint cuttings wilting
The obvious starting point in troubleshooting this problem is checking if your mint cutting is getting enough water. Second avoid putting the plant in direct sunlight as it is still trying to get a footing. I recommend starting off in a glass or container with water only before planting the cutting in soil. This allows the cutting to grow some roots before your transfer it to a soil environment.
It is possible that your cutting has its cut end dead or dry such that it is unable to absorb water. Make a fresh cutting some few millimetres above the current cut. This way we hope to create a fresh cut that enables better and efficient water absorption and stop the wilting.
Mint cutting not rooting
The first thing to note is that mint cuttings take a good while to begin rooting. In may case, as mentioned above, I waited a good two weeks before seeing anything. During this long wait, if unexperienced, you may conclude that the cutting is failing to root. Unless you have waited a reasonably long time, you may look to other causes.
On the other hand, this rooting issue may also be related to problems already discussed earlier above. Check if the current spot were the cutting was done is still viable.
Instead of placing the cutting directly into soil, let it instead grow some roots as I show in this tutorial before going ahead to put it in soil. Mint cuttings tend to do well when first allowed to grow roots whilst immersed in water.
Summary of how to grow Mint from cuttings
Here is a to-the-point summary of how to grow mint from cuttings in soil or water. Refer to my step-by-step tutorial with pictures for detail.
- Get mint cutting from mother plant.
- Take a container filled with water and place the cutting. Do not let full cutting get submerged in water.
- After several days, the mint cutting will produce some roots.
- At this point you may let it continue growing on water changing the water regularly.
- For a full-grown mature plant, take the cutting and plant in some nutrient rich soil in a pot or directly in the ground.
- Keep watering the plant as it grows to become a sizeable bush.
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