Cat mint

This cat mint grows in my Gran's garden in Shropshire. It has always attracted cats. At the moment bad boy Thomas is luxuriating in the growth and flattening the plant (thanks to Mum for the photos).

When I moved to Tillicoultry and the small patch of builders rubble that became my first garden, Mum gave me two cuttings of the plant. They struggled after planting out because Smudge the Incontinent loves cat mint and reduced both cuttings to little hairy twigs sticking out of the ground. I had to put cages over both of them to allow them to establish. Once protected they grew into beautiful robust plants that Smudge adored and which attracted all the neighbours' cats.

Smudge, head down in the mint sniffing ecstatically.

Miss Milly giving Smudge "evils" from the garden wall, she wants that mint.

Eventually I moved from Tillicoultry to Argyll. I divided the mint and took two healthy chunks with me. One clump did not survive the transfer to the pot, the other thrived for a short while until Smudge found it in it's pot and reduced it to a hairy twig once more. I planted this mint on the third tier with the periwinkle and potentilla. I couldn't protect it with a cage on the steep bank and it didn't survive the affection lavished on it by fatty and various visiting felines.

Luckily Carol at work had grown several cat mints from seed and gave me one of her thriving plants. I planted this in a difficult, shady, damp area on the first tier and it has romped away, mainly because the cats have ignored it. Apparently it lacks the attraction of my Gran's special Shropshire catmint. Looks just as pretty to me but then I'm not a catmint junky.