Catmint
Nepeta x faassenii
A long-blooming, fast-spreading perennial with aromatic grey-green leaves and clouds of lavender-blue flowers, lovely along paths, in borders and spilling from walls or pots, and bees love it. Deer avoid its scent. It's sterile, so it won't reseed; shear it after the first flush for more bloom, in soil that drains.
- Mature size
- 2 × 2.5 ft
- 0.6 × 0.8 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 4a–8b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Dry to medium
- Blooms
- Jun–Sep
Catmint at its mature size
A mature Catmint grows 1.5 to 2 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: NC State Extension.
Through the year
What Catmint looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Below ground · Nov–Mar
Dies back to the ground.
In leaf · Apr, Oct
Loose mound of small gray-green scalloped leaves, few or no flowers.
In flower · May–Sep
Mound covered in lavender-blue flower spikes.
Photos
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Growing Catmint
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest, the Plains and Mountain West, the Pacific Northwest, and California.
- Growth rate
- Fast
- Good for
- Groundcover, drought tolerant, deer resistant, pollinators, fragrant, and fast growing
- Leaves
- Dies back in winter
- Native to
- Garden hybrid
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Catmint, that’s about 2.5 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Catmint in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other catmints
Catmint
Walker's Low CatmintAll drawn to the same scale.