Nepeta nuda Purple Cat - Catnip

Nepeta nuda 'Purple Cat', also known as catmint, is a tall, lightweight and floriferous, rarely used perennial with clouds of lilac to pale pink flowers for two or three months, carried on brown to purple stems, with attractive green and aromatic foliage. Easy to grow in well-drained soil, this hardy perennial loves the sun and tolerates dry soils. It lightens flower beds, blends beautifully with stones, and makes lovely flowering pots.

Nepeta nuda, the plant that cats adore, is a perennial belonging to the Lamiaceae family, native to central and eastern Europe, and western Asia. 

'Purple Cat' is a bushy and branched, deciduous perennial, forming a 1m (3ft) tall flowering clump occupying 70cm (28in) on the ground. In spring, it forms a clump of stems covered with almost smooth, wavy, oblong leaves, matte green on the upper side and pale green on the underside, which give off a curious scent when crushed, evoking mint, and musk. It blooms from June (sometimes earlier in favourable climates) to July-August, before the summer drought. It is covered in a profusion of long, thin, brown-purple spikes, adorned with tiny flowers in a beautiful pastel shade, somewhere between pink and mauve, with dull pink bracts, loved by pollinating insects.

Its beautiful foliage, generous flowering, and lightness make Nepeta Purple Cat an essential plant for dry or mountain gardens, easy to combine with other perennials (yarrow, penstemons, perennial geraniums) or flowering shrubs, such as roses or buddleias. This plant is very easy to incorporate into flowering pots. It looks stunning in rockeries or on walls, towering over them with its flowering height, alongside Aster ericoides prostratus, Erigeron karvinskianus, creeping rosemary, or wall bellflowers. Combine it with yellow phlomis, ballota, or red shrubby salvias in flower beds.