What You Think May Be Mint

I'm going to tell on myself. I realize that I may be risking my gardening reputation entirely, but I'm going to tell the story anyway.  As you know, I lost my job in the Spring, and in an attempt to bring in a few dollars, I took on a few gardening jobs, helping people to prepare their flower beds for the summer.  I was cleaning out flower beds for this one particular lady who had mint plants coming up everywhere.  Anyone who has ever grown mint knows how easily and quickly it will spread.  They had jumped outside of the flower beds and were coming up in various places around her lawn, so I decided that I would bring home the ones that I pulled out of her lawn and plant them in my own little flower bed.

I carefully transplanted them into my flower bed and started to water them daily.  I was encouraged as I watched them take root and begin to grow taller every day.  Towards the end of the summer I noticed that they were beginning to sprout small yellow buds on the top, and I thought to myself, "I don't remember mint having yellow buds on it," but I didn't pay  much attention to it.  Until one day I looked around the back yard and I realized that the "mint" plants I had growing in my flower bed looked exactly like the weeds that were growing freely all around the yard...

The funny thing is that at various times over the summer I would break off a leaf and smell it and think, "Hmmm doesn't smell very minty."  So the moral of this story is:  Be careful what you bring home from someone else's garden - what you thought was mint may turn out to be just weeds.