[ Lost in the Landscape ]

plush lush

I have a num­ber of plants in the gar­den that reseed one year to the next, things like alyssum, vio­las, Cal­i­for­nia pop­pies, some orna­men­tal grasses, as well as the let­tuces that I’ve writ­ten about. Another of these hardy reseed­ers is catnip.

A mem­ber of the mint fam­ily, it can get ram­bunc­tious in moister cli­mates where it spreads eas­ily by seed. For­tu­nately, unlike many other plants in the mint fam­ily, for me it doesn’t spread by under­ground run­ners. Each year I can count on two to a half-dozen new seedlings each year in seem­ingly ran­dom loca­tions through­out the yard. Any­thing that comes up where it’s not wel­come is an easy tug to remove.

This year I’ve iden­ti­fied two cat­nip plants in the gar­den so far. Both were start­ing to gain stature until Scooter got into one of them last week­end. For­tu­nately they have that mint gene that helps them bounce back after a thor­ough chew­ing. Now I’m won­der­ing whether cat­nip needs to be a fed­er­ally con­trolled sub­stance…

July 10 2008 | Categories: my garden | Tags: catnip • cats | 2 Comments »