Nepeta ‘Kit Cat’ Makes a Really Nice Edging Plant
Actually, this is a short post with two goals. The first is to show how good Nepeta x faassenii ‘Kit Cat’ looks when it blooms along the edge of my Driveway Border. The second is to say farewell to the tulip season.
I love ‘Kit Cat’s’ mass of small blue flowers. And it looks pretty good even when not in bloom. Nepeta is happy soaking up hot afternoon sun and only needs supplemental watering in fairly extreme circumstances. The foliage is an attractive gray-green and has a minty fragrance.
Before I planted ‘Kit Cat’ I used Sweet Alyssum (Lobularia maritima) to edge the west side of this bed. This looked great when in flower, and the fragrance was wonderful. Only thing is it would start looking ratty around mid-summer. I finally decided to use Sweet Alyssum mainly in pots.
As for the tulips, they were all looking at least a little worse for wear this past weekend. By the time I get home on Friday it’s likely most of the petals will be gone. It was a glorious tulip season while it lasted, though. For the record, my absolute favorite tulips are now ‘Early Harvest’, ‘Princess Irene’, ‘Couleur Cardinal’, and ‘Ballerina’. However, I reserve the right to revise this list.
I’m linking this post up with Wednesday Vignette at Flutter and Hum. Follow the link to see some other intriguing vignettes.
My tulips are a mere memory at this point too. Nepeta is such a great plant, and it looks wonderful along your pathway. I bet Kit Cat will keep you happy for most of the summer. 🙂
It looks good through the summer – but it is at its best right now.
I’ve always liked nepetas – such an easy care, versatile plant!
Yes, exactly!
I have a love/hate relationship with nepeta. It is an easy plant, the bees love, it flowers for ages and even adds scent, but it gets floppy and has a tendency to spread swamping everything else. (Also I have moved yards and yards of the stuff from one border to another more than once at Wimpole, so maybe it is just over-exposure)
‘Kit Cat’ is very compact, not more than 18″ tall so it doesn’t flop or smother other plants.
Hah, thanks. That sound worth checking out.
Great gardening minds think alike. 🙂 I have a whole row of of them along our driveway. 🙂
I think we can confirm for each other the fact that we have great gardening minds!
I love nepeta as well, but I’ve never seen ‘Kit Kat’. It looks lovely along your walkway.
Thanks. Nepeta is a nice compact cultivar.
Nepeta is a beautiful plant. I always wanted it in my garden, but hesitated, because of my neighbors’ cat. I was afraid he’d become a regular visitor in my garden (he already did some damage). Now, when that cat is gone, I’m going to plant it.
We seem to have few wandering cats in our neighborhood, so that hasn’t been a problem.
It’s interesting how gardeners of all stripes count the march of time with our flowers coming into and going out of bloom. You are just finishing tulip time and I’m just finishing peony time.
And our peonies are just beginning.
I have Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ also, but not Kit Cat. My catmint gets very rangy mid summer and needs a good cutting back to bloom in late summer. The feral cats flatten it very often even though it was advertised in the trade to be a well behaved and cat resistant catmint. So it would not make a good edging in my neighborhood. I had it once as edging and it never looked good after it matured (third year). Great when first installed, but always needed cutting back and shaping. I feel it does best in large gardens with plenty of space and room to look natural and spread. Great with roses on large estates too.
I’ve had Kit Cat for three years, it seems to stay relatively compact – about 18″ tall. I have some ‘Walker’s Low’ and it grows much larger.
Nepeta is far better than Lavender as an edging which, although the garden centers really push to sell it, is not the easiest of plants to grow properly.
I agree completely. Lavender grows poorly in this region.
I once planted ‘Walkers Low’ in my first garden, under the mistaken impression that it would stay small – that’s what happens when you don’t carefully read labels, LOL. And the tiny plants in those 2” pots looked so innocent. 😉 What I should have planted instead – and later did – was ‘Kit Kat’.
I hear that so many times about ‘Walker’s Low’! Such a poor choice of names. I believe that it is named after the garden where it was discovered.
Geranium ‘Tiny Monster’, on the other hand, is a name that’s right on the money. 😉
I like it. It has perfect timing!
Very true!
Your front view looks so inviting. Thanks for the intro to Kit Kat. I like Walker’s Low, but have some places Kit Kat might work well. I’ve never seen it in the nurseries here though. What is the yellow to the left of the Nepeta hedge?
Those are Celandine Poppies.
I love the dwarf nepetas especially Kit Kat…I need to divide and move them around the sunny areas…lovely view Jason.
Are there other dwarf varieties? I haven’t seen them.
Thanks!
Darn. Sometimes the good things just don’t seem to last very long. On the plus side your tulips were absolutely spectacular. I really like nepeta. It makes a nice contrast next to the orange tulips. My cat REALLY liked nepeta too. She used to lay in the middle as though it were some kind of cat nest. The poor plant only lasted a couple of seasons as a result. heh. I guess they can’t hold up to foot/cat bottom traffic.
Well, we don’t have a cat, and there don’t seem to be many in the neighborhood these days, so cat bottoms haven’t been a big problem for me.
Kit cat is lovely, what a good edging plant! Wow….those tulips are still doing you proud for sure! What a display!xxx
Thank you!
Saying hello to Kit Kat and goodbye to tulips makes a fine vignette. Glad to see you joining in.
Happy to take part.
Kit Cat is new to me. I have used Walkers Low for quite some time for edging and for a nice mound in the border. Is this variety lower growing and that is why you have used it? Wonder if it is available in the States. Thanks for the introduction. Looks great how you’re using it.
Yes, it is more compact which makes it easier to use in the garden.
Looks nice. How tall does it grow?
About 18″.
Does it flop over? It looks like a kind of sage-y thing in my garden, but I have to support it. Yours looks well-behaved.
Because this one is compact it doesn’t have a big problem with flopping.
Very, very nice! Would it be okay if I linked back to your post about how you tie up your peonies, from my blog? I really loved that method and used it last year. I would show a picture of doing mine and then link back to your post for people to read how you did it.
It’s the post you did last year. Only if it’s okay with you.
Diane