Propagating peppermint and lemon verbena – UPDATE
As you can see from the picture, my peppermint and lemon verbena propagation has come a long quite well. I did have a little aphid infestation on the peppermint plant which I attempted to take care of with manual pinching, but eventually I gave up and chopped off the top off the plant. I then followed up with a hefty dose of insecticidal soap to the soil and the remaining stem. I would have preferred an even more natural method such as ladybugs but sure my officemates would prefer I didn’t.
The lemon verbena did pretty well on its own with one exception I think I mistakenly broke or cut the top off the plant so there was no vertical growth and just crazy shoots horizontally so I cut most of these off and replanted to 3 new starts which have taken off as well as their parent.
I always dig up a clump of mint and have it in a pot indoors. At least I will have just a few leaves through the Winter.
What’s wrong with having ladybugs? They are perfectly harmless to human beings, cute-looking and yet do a great job at ridding the aphids. I have them on my peach and pear trees and I moved them to my mint too…
savvy_choice: Well in this case the plants are indoors (office at work) in my office, though I could live with a few lady bugs in my office, I am pretty sure my co-workers wouldn’t find them so cute. But outdoors I can’t get enough of the things have a annual ladybug release with my two girls.