Specialty Gardening: Cottage Garden Seed Swap & Chat #21, 0 by PullTab

PullTab wrote:
Howdy,
I do have a bit of information on the catnip, catmint relationship. I started some kind of catnip "Nepeta catlikeummyus" purchased from a display at a 'Pets Luv Us' kind of box pet store, transplanted into 8" clay pots and given to a bunch of my cat-owned knitting friends.

One of the catnip receiving friends explained that 'cat mint' is a close relative like "Nepeta kindaminty-us", and that some of the Nepeta family are more attractive to cat noses and others have been bred to grow low like a ground cover and others bred for tall flower spikes; some annual, some perennial. Nepetas labeled 'catmint' can be used in the home herb garden for a tea that cures what ails you.

This girlfriend has to know the truth, she used to edit science text books (5th -7th grade) for the Great State of Texas. But then again, she knows a whole lot about the killer White Rabbit and that when you count to three to throw the bomb you must not stop at two but go directly to three. And she knows all the words to the Brave Sir Robin song and how the Black Knight only got a flesh wound....I don't think she would mislead me....much,

Any of the Nepeta family I have been foolhearty enough to direct sow in the garden have been loved to death by the neighbor cats. Tops eaten, beds rolled all upon, I had to start them in a locked room on a high shelf. When I transplanted to the clay pots, I had to put all the pots into an empty bunny hutch in a sunny location until the plants filled the pots a bit. Even then a big ginger cat from 2 doors down would take his afternood nap on the bunny hutch like he was the big boss of all it contained. Cats.