Categories
Sowing and Propagating

Water-Rooted Mint Cuttings

Starting new mint plants off in water is a really quick and easy way to multiply your stock.

A couple of years ago I had a go at propagating mint plants from various sections of stem and/or root, and it seemed to go quite well.

Recently, I spotted a Twitter post (sorry, I forgot to bookmark it for reference) that suggested it would be easy to take softwood cuttings and root them in water, so I decided to give that a go as well.

As you can see, it seems to have worked rather well:

One the left we have two cuttings of black peppermint, and on the right, two of apple mint, all trimmed to just below a pair of leaf nodes and then left to stand in a small vase of plain tap water.

The black peppermint was especially keen on the water-rooting method, producing new roots within a couple of days. The apple mint took a little longer; it was four or five days before new roots showed and as you can see they’re not quite as well-developed as a result.

Good enough for potting-up though. All four plantlets have now been transferred to small pots of peat-free compost and I’ve started another four cuttings off: two more black peppermint, and two swiss mint.

Peppermint tea, anyone?

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