Cat mint?

[HelenD]

Wow Mark that's a fab flower bed! Hopefully ours will carry on growing and be half as good as that next year!

I'm just glad he likes it - trying to do as much as I can to keep him close to home (see hunting thread for reasons lol!) so the more fun I can make our garden the better! We were looking at outdoor cat houses yesterday, somewhere for him to sit in the dry and survey the area in comfort during the winter! 

[Lyn (Slugsta)]

Helen, it's great to hear that your new plants have been a success! 

[Mark]

Right to left -cat grass (+ various herbs) catnip, cat mint and then there is the blue grass that they all seem to be more interested in! 

[Sue P (Paddysmum)]

Yay!!   Moray also likes to do that with his little pot of catmint too.   

[HelenD]

Just thought I would update this, but we did get a catmint plant for His Highness, and it's gone down a treat!

He hasn't destroyed it, yet, but every time he is let out he heads to his little corner of the patio, which has the catmint in a pot, and also a pot with cat grass in. He loves rubbing on the catmint, especially if we go over and squish the leaves a bit, then he will have a good nibble! Then he will nibble the cat grass, and head off for his adventures

So in summary, a success!

[Judecat (Paula)]

I Plant catnip in pots, the one time I put it in the (front) garden it was fine the first year even though we did get visitor cats nibbling, it was an established plant bought from a garden centre, when it tried to come up the next year it got rolled into oblivion. In pots I can tear some off, let my cats go nuts on it and then stick it in either the greenhouse or the utility room and that seems to work.

Hope that helps.

[Mark]

We had some border planted a couple of months back. Our brief to the gardener was cat-safe and cat-friendly.He planted some catmint and catnip, as well as various grasses + some other things like thornless roses etc. Oddy, none of my 3 cats, nor visiting cats are very interested in the cat mint and catnip - they seem to favour the grasses. One of them chews the purple flowers on the catmint, but theyare groing like wildfire. I haven't seen a single cat roll in them

[HelenD]

Ooh thanks Mymbles, that's really interesting! Definitely getting him some cat grass to put in pots around the garden, and keeping a couple of more mature shrubs for hiding under too. I might well have to add a dry hiding spot somewhere as well come to think of it - he went out this morning and got utterly soaked in a sudden downpour bless him!

Hmm yes I hadn't thought about attracting other cats! We rarely see any others, probably as we are surrounded by gardens with dogs, so I might try putting some in a pot to start with and see what happens perhaps!

[Lyn (Slugsta)]

I thought of planting some for Alf. However, I decided against it as Alf isn't very dominant and I don't want to attract lots of other cats into the garden.

[Mymblesdaughter]

I remember my mother-in-law used to grow it and bring some up for our cat. She did say it was hard to grow as all the local cats would roll on it 

This is an interesting little article about cat gardens

http://www.yourcat.co.uk/Neighbourhood-Cat-Campaign/create-a-cat-friendly-garden.html

[HelenD]

We are having our garden sorted out next week, and I'm just researching what to plant in our nice new flowerbeds!

Does anyone recommend catmint plants? I like the idea of having something 'attractive and fun' for Buddy in our garden, but if he's going to go nuts/be permanently high, and squash it or something, maybe not a good idea LOL?!