Mr Fothergill's 22838 Catmint Catnip, Green

This stuff really does grow like wild fire - providing you’re willing to keep re-potting it that is. I first seeded this in a shallow tray of just normal cheap compost and then put the tray in a clear plastic bag in my greenhouse, and I won’t lie, it felt like it took AGES to actually germinate and show any signs of green.The buds seemed to take about a month or two for them to get to about two or three cm. Once they got to that stage, they wouldn’t grow any bigger but they didn’t seem big enough to me to warrant being re-potted yet. For a time I thought I’d failed, but decided to pot them into deeper pots and WOW, the rate of growth on them is INSANE. Within about a week, these had more than doubled in size, in fact, some with them tripled in size. Within a week, these plants have pretty much outgrown every pot I ever place them in and they’re a bit tedious to keep up with at times (at one point I put the plants (about two inches tall at this stage) in a bigger pot and within THREE DAYS the roots were spilling out of the drainage holes).The leaves on this particular plant get very big quite quickly, right now, the largest leaves (I’d say these plants were first seeded around March?) are now the size of my thumbs, just huge.Now, for those of you who want to know, does this affect cats? It depends as not all cats have the “catnip gene” (some cats have a gene that makes them receptive to catnip, others don’t have it, and it varies from cat to cat). I get two visiting cats to my garden daily, they care not for it and won’t go near it at all. I have two cats - a black cat and a tabby, and only the tabby actually likes this plant. The tabby wants to eat the leaves raw, and gets quite enthusiastic about it, pretty much ripping them out of my hands. I don’t know if it’s normal but after Ingesting a few leaves, he seems to be a bit more energetic and his limp (he’s a three legger) seems less pronounced, so I don’t know if it helps with his pain or not but he seems a bit more spirited once he’s had this.Just be prepared to have lots of pots and compost for this. I’ve gone through an entire bag of compost in three weeks for ONE packet of these seeds (I bought two more packets and then never needed them). Greenhouse helps but my greenhouse door is stuck permanently open so would probably survive outdoors or in a cloche or windowsill.

Grows very well, but don’t leave it where your cat can get to it or it will be eaten before it’s hardly come through the compost! I have to grow mine on the top of the tall fridge until it’s big enough to plant outside, then it has to take its chances with my three cats.

They came up fine but I'm not sure all the seeds worked.Looking forward to trying them on the cat :-).

I literally just filled a pot with compost, sprinkled the seeds across the top and gave a light watering then left it outside. Unfortunately the kids Ball next door came over and knocked the pot over but after putting it back together again it started growing green shots. Then as leaves started appearing something began eating it and small holes were appearing in the leaves. So I bought it indoors to a naturally well lit place. It started growing great and now I give 3 of my four cats a leaf every other day or so (as too much can cause the runs) and they go mental over it and then devour it (the 4th cat just doesn’t like it). It’s great to watch and better than any cat toy I’ve tried. It also grows quickly now it is well established.

Don’t know what went wrong only got 3 tiny shoots I’m not blaming the product entirely but I usually get things to grow.

I planted them in many different ways. Some directly some in pots etc. none of them sprouted.

What can I say, at least it’s started to grow. I’m sure my cats will be thrilled once fully grown.

I'm very good at killing just about every plant I've been given, but had a roaring success with these! I read online that freezing them overnight before defrosting then sowing is best, so did that, chucked a random amount between three pots and in about two months I have three lovely looking clusters of catnip! Some slightly bushier than others, but I blame that on my sowing technique. The cats aren't too bothered by the plants themselves, but if I pull a few leaves off they're keen to play. I've transfered two of the pots into one massive pot with some cat grass seeds around it to see how that gets on - I think leaving them in my very sunny porch until well established was a contributing factor to the good growth.