Calamintha
Calamintha nepeta
Sows itself around freely once it settles — welcome along a gravel edge, less so in a tidy border.
- Type
- Flower · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Purple and violet
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Feeding
- Rose & flower
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- June
- Mar–Jun Spring Growth
- Jun–Oct Flowering
- Oct–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 17.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 17.7 in
- Between rows
- 22 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 18 in–2 ft across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 12 in of soil
A dense mass of roots through the topsoil with a few running deeper after water. Work the bed to a spade’s depth before planting and it will find everything it needs without much help.
The habit is Calamintha’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
Salvia nemorosa, Perovskia, Echinacea, Stachys
Green-leaved flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com