Mentha pulegium
Pennyroyal, fleabane, Virginia dittany: its nickname, fleabane, comes from a very old use—its leaves were used to fill bedding to repel parasites. This creeping mint has a powerful aroma, sharper and more penetrating than that of culinary mints, and forms a fragrant carpet wherever the soil stays cool.
Characteristics:
-
Creeping habit: it carpets the ground with trailing stems that root as they spread.
-
Powerful aroma: distinctly stronger and more camphoraceous than spearmint.
-
Flowers in clustered whorls: small lilac flowers arranged in tiers along the stems, highly attractive to bees.
-
Hardy perennial: it regrows every spring and spreads on its own.
Precautions — read carefully:
-
This is not a culinary mint. Pennyroyal is rich in pulegone, a compound that clearly distinguishes it from edible mints. It should not be consumed as an infusion or herbal tea like spearmint or peppermint, and its essential oil must be completely avoided for domestic use.
-
Absolutely not recommended for pregnant or breastfeeding women, or for children.
- Grow it as an ornamental, ground-cover, and repellent plant, not as a culinary herb. If you are looking for a mint for cooking, choose spearmint or peppermint.
- Like all mints, it is spreading and invasive: its runners quickly colonize an area. Grow it in a container, or delimit its area with an underground barrier.
Sowing advice:
-
Exposure: full sun to partial shade.
-
Soil: rich in organic matter and, above all, cool to moist—this is the decisive factor. In the wild, it grows beside ponds and in depressions that remain damp. Soil that dries out completely in summer will not suit it.
-
Method: cold stratification significantly improves germination. Then sow on the surface without covering: these tiny seeds need light. Keep them moist until germination. See how to sow your seeds.
Planting advice:
- Transplant 30 cm apart, or plant directly in a deep container. It is well suited to the edges of a pond or a damp area of the garden.
Care advice:
- Water regularly; it does not tolerate prolonged drought. Mulch around the base.
- Cut back the clump after flowering to make it denser, and monitor its spread.
Beneficial pairings:
- Its powerful scent makes it a traditional repellent plant against several insects. Planted along an edge or in a container near a patio, it serves this purpose without invading crops. See our repellent plants.
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Its late-summer flowering is extremely attractive to bees and arrives at a time when resources are becoming scarce: bees, bumblebees, and butterflies flock to it.
- Its dense carpet shelters soil microfauna and protects cool areas from drying out.
- It is a species of wetland habitats in decline in France; growing it contributes to its conservation.
Uses:
- Fragrant ground cover, pond edging, and a repellent plant for containers. Its dried flowering tops have traditionally been used to fill sachets placed in wardrobes.
- Traditional medicinal plant, reserved for professional use. See our medicinal plants to sow.
Harvesting your own seeds:
Leave a few flower clusters to dry completely on the plant, then crush them over a container: the seeds are extremely fine. However, division of the clump or propagation from runners is simplest, as mint multiplies readily on its own. See how to store your seeds.
Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne volcanoes, we choose open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, sorted, and carefully packaged, without any chemical treatment. Our belief: to give gardeners back the ability to sow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
A fragrant carpet for the cool corners of the garden, and a pollinator magnet at the end of summer.
