These are one of the few herbs that prefer to grow in partial shade. Top dress the soil with organic matter once a year to keep it rich and maintain drainage. These can lead to you having to water the plant more frequently. While these plants thrive in rich soils, growing in soil that is not so rich helps to concentrate the plant’s essential oils.Īvoid planting in sandy soils that are quick to dry out. Chocolate mint by Adam McLane / CC 2.0 Where Can I Grow the Plant?Ĭhocolate mint is best planted in humus-rich, moist soil that is either neutral or slightly acidic.
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If you don’t have access to a plant from which you can take cuttings, you will need to purchase a chocolate plant from a garden store or nursery.īuy young plants from a garden store or plant nursery. Where to Buy Chocolate MintĪ sterile plant, you can’t grow this herb from seed. Instead, it is propagated by taking stem cuttings. This means that the plant doesn’t produce seeds. Planting in a pot helps to contain this spread, preventing it from slowly overtaking your garden.Ī hybrid plant, this is a sterile mentha plant. Like other types of mint, the chocolate variety spreads through the ground via rhizomes. These attract scores of bees and butterflies to your garden.Ī mature chocolate mint plant is roughly 2 ft tall. The stems are also purple.ĭuring the late spring and summer, lavender-colored flowers emerge. Its round, lance-shaped, deep green leaves have purple undersides. Root new cuttings in late summer to bring inside for the winter.A herbaceous perennial in USDA zones 5a to 9a, this plant is usually cultivated as an annual plant in colder climates.Ĭhocolate mint is darker in color than the bright green peppermint plant. Harvest throughout the growing season, unless you want the plant to display its attractive pink flowers in late spring to midsummer.
Chocolate mint plant full#
Water and fertilize occasionally and grow in full sun for maximum flavor.
Chocolate mint plant how to#
Learning how to care for chocolate mint is simple too. You can also include it in a chocolate themed garden with other chocolate plants. Roots of the growing chocolate mint plant may escape through drainage holes, but you can remove the container once in a while and clip off any roots that grow from drainage holes. If you want to grow chocolate mint in a garden with other herbs, plant the entire container and sink it into the ground. Yearly division of the contents of the pot results in an abundance of plants for you to keep or share with friends and family, so that everyone has a container of the useful chocolate herb plant. Once you have a cutting rooted, you likely won’t need to get another plant. Growing chocolate mint outside in pots that can be placed in full to partial sun is easy. Learning how to grow and harvest chocolate mint provides a regular supply of the fragrant leaves, which may be used fresh or dried for later use. Longer stems of the chocolate herb plant can be clipped for rooting more plants. Use the leaves in your dishes and drinks. Mature brownish red stems and attractive serrated leaves become full after pinching out the tips. Regular pinching and division keeps chocolate mint healthy, full and under control. Growing chocolate mint in containers is easy. Horror stories of the escape of uncontained chocolate mint are shared by gardeners who planted it directly in the ground, only for it to take over the bed or spread to a neighbor’s property where it then had to be removed. When learning how to care for chocolate mint, know that it must be contained in some way to avoid rapid spread.
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As with most square-stemmed members of the mint family, growing chocolate mint can take over the area in which it is planted in the ground, readily and quickly. Growing chocolate mint, both indoors and outside, is an easy way to always have a fresh supply of the chocolate herb plant.Ĭhocolate mint plants ( Mentha x piperita ‘Chocolate’) are attractive, fragrant and easy to grow. Leaves of chocolate mint plants add versatility to drinks, desserts and garnishes for a variety of dishes you prepare in the kitchen.
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