A Mint Lawn for Cold Climate Landscapes

In the late 90s, when I still lived in Denver, I choked out my tiny 'Nature's Choice' lawn out front with cardboard and mulch for a few months to pursue a years' old fantasy.....a mint lawn. A few months later when I sure all the grass had died, I sprigged the area with runners of 'Candy Mint', which in that rich soil quickly colonized the mulched soil. I then set native flagstones atop the lawn to connect my front sidewalk to the flagstone pathway in my south rose garden. This 'Candy Mint' lawn needed just a couple deep waterings a month, and as I'd always imagined, was sheer bliss to mow with my little pushmower, my whole front yard reeking of 'Wrigley's Spearmint Gum'. Every once in a while, I'd skip mowing for a few weeks to let the mint get tall, than make a massive harvest using scissors, and dried the mint indoors to store in jars to use in winter. Since I already had a patch of the mint growing by a rain gutter, and the cardboard and mulch were free, and already had a pile of the flagstone, the cost of the conversion was VERY minimal.

Tired of watering and mowing a demanding grass lawn and live in a colder climate? Give it a try! John