Apple Mint

Apple Mint, Mentha suaveolens, is a soft-textured mint valued for its gentle, fruity flavor blending mint with a sweet apple note. Native to southern and western Europe, it is a robust spreading perennial reaching 1 to 3 feet tall with rounded, woolly, pale green leaves covered in fine hairs that give it a fuzzy appearance and the alternate name woolly mint. The mild flavor and softer menthol make it excellent for teas, fruit salads, jellies, and garnishes, and it is the traditional mint for some English mint sauces. It produces spikes of white to pale pink flowers loved by bees. Hardy in USDA zones 5 to 11, apple mint tolerates drier and poorer soils better than many mints. It spreads by runners and is propagated by division or cuttings.