Small Bushy Garden with Wild, but Boring Mint - Suggestions

Hello Everyone! I'm relatively new to gardening and new here too!
I have a small garden that's roughly 2 meters by 4 meters, and I have some Mint going on. As I understand they are rampant, and could take over, but I do plan to make my garden as bushy as possible! But the thing is, Mint is very boring to look at!

The ground is piled into two large mounds, and it seems that the mint has not gone all the way to the top, which they apparently do not touch! I have some Snake plants there, and I'd like to transfer them to pots.

Can any of you suggest some bushy and flowery plants to mix with mint? Any beginner, dense, flowery, and not-too-tall plants to interact with the mint would be very helpful!

I have a home business and I have - a lot - of time to prune the Mint (Java and Lemon) as I enjoy the tea very much.

Thank you sooo much!

The mint will choke out anything else you plant. IMO you have 2 options.
1 - Dig up all the mint, replant some of it in bottomless coffee cans, and sink the coffee cans into your garden patch. The mint will stay put and you'll have lots of space for other stuff.
2 - Dig up and throw out chunks of mint. Plant other things in bottomless coffee cans and sink the coffee cans into the spaces in your garden patch. The cans will keep the mint from overrunning your other plants.

As for what else to put in, I'd recommend spiky things for texture and height contrast, such as lavender, Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), pitcher's sage (Salvia pitcherii) if you want blues; Jerusalem sage (Phlomis) for yellow, Gaura 'Whirling Butterflies' if you want pink, or Gaillardia 'Fanfare' if you want orange. For bushy plants you can't go wrong with cranebill geraniums or even, in your climate, the other geranium, aka Pelargonium. The former come in all shades of pink, purple, and blue; the latter in white, pink, red, and orange.

Good luck!

Oh, I'll do that!

And great suggestions too, thanks! I'll look for Lavender, hope they become bushy as well :)

Thanks Carrieebryan!

How much rain do you get (particularly in the summer)? I've never been to the Philippines, but I picture your climate as warm and humid and tropical with plenty of rain. If I'm right about that, lavender may not do well--it is native to areas that get hardly any rain at all during the summer months, so if you get a lot of summer rain they can develop fungal problems and die very easily. If you can give them good drainage it's worth trying as an experiment, but I don't think you have the right climate for them to do really well.

OH! Thank you for bringing that up Ecrane3! Yes, it might prove to be a problem, as we do get a lot of rain here. In fact, we have it for more than a third of a year - starting from May to September! And yes, as I write this down, there's already a thunderstorm outside. Aww, but I would really have liked the lavender as I prefer plants that are more than just ornamental. I'll keep that in mind. (Most articles for gardening that I find are based on US and UK climates, it's quite hard to find SEA articles :-( ) Thank you!

I might look for Geraniums as Carrieebryan suggested but I do find Geraniums... uhm...(gasp) boring.

(Weather's perfect for Orchids though, my mom just sticks them to a wall like post-its and they grow and bloom in no time. But I'm sick and tired of orchids, it's like EVERY garden here has an orchid. People sell them to passing vehicles during the red light in traffic - that's how common they are.)

You could plant your lavender in pots and bring them in when it rains or keep them somewhere else.

If you put your lavenders on a raised place, so that all that rain will run off -- you did say you're planting on a mound, right? -- they should do alright. All gardening is an exercise in patience and experimentation, anyway, and the acceptance of the cycles of life and death. You could try one lavender, and if it survives, in a couple of years plant some more. Or maybe you'll have found something else you like better.

Geraniums (pelargoniums) come in a very wide variety. Round green leaves and orangy red flowers are only one of the many, many variations. Look on the web for, oh, purple blossoms, or white with pink picotee; solid, striped, or zoned leaves, round leaves or deeply cut spiky leaves -- and don't forget the gazillion varieties of scented geraniums! If I thought my cats would leave them alone, I'd have a half dozen in pots in my living room window, all different and all amazing.

Even with a raised bed, I think there's just too much summer rain in the Philippines for the lavenders. By all means give them a try if you really like them, but even if the drainage is great they can only handle so much rain and humidity.