"Floppin" is the natural growth habit of this lovely plant. Just give it plenty of room.

Mine sort of cascades over a low stone wall. It's a nice look. I think it is recommended to cut them back after bloom to keep them compact and to pormote later season bloom.

I have a few because of reseeding.
In my formal garden I cut it back like you would mums.
It stays at a nice 1foot compact height and blooms all summer.
The others are at a holding area which I keep plants to plant later. These sprawl over the brick wall. My cat loves to go there an lay.

I do like the look in the formal garden to be neat. I have left it at times to sprawl between plants with some training.

Thanks! This plant has been in my garden almost a year. It was half gallon size when planted. Anyone know how wide it will eventually get? I looked it up on various sites but information was inconsistent. Missouri Botanic Garden said 18 inches; I'd say this was already 18 inches last year, counting sprawl. If it will get really wide then it may cover that present 1 foot gap and sprawl over the wall soon anyway, and I don't have to move it. May move the hyacinths in front instead.

Something on Dave's Garden caught my attention: someone wrote in saying, "Walker's Low is the name of a garden, not a descriptive name for the plant's height." Uh-oh! The word "low" definitely induced me both to buy it and to choose its location. If that is the case, how tall does it get in your gardens?

hostared, if you pinch or cut back like mums, when do you stop (July 4th like mums?), so you don't prevent flowering?

Thanks for the pictures! Mine was a lot floppier than the ones in the top picture, so I guess pruning is in order. Are you pruning while they are blooming? We're in the same zone, so what works for you should work for me. The soil is rich and amended in the bed where I have the catmint; it's raised too. Maybe that's why it flowered so profusely.

Love the blue of the catmint against the peach daylilies! As it happens I planted last fall a Siloam Double Classic about 2 feet behind the catmint. I have not seen it bloom yet but hope it will be as good. I tend to forget about combinations when planting daylilies: mostly just look for a place to shoehorn one in. That Smoky Mountain Autumn is great! I've been tempted by that one before but so far have not gotten one.

I have three different kinds of catmint and only the tallest one (I do not know the name, purchased last summer), with considerably larger leaves, is tall, stays upright and does not flop. The Six Hills Giant is smaller and flops, and after that the cats finish it off by rolling in it until there is VERY LITTLE left. Hardly more than a rootball, really. The smallest one also flops and the cats love rolling in it, too. In my experience, the way to go about catmint, first of all, is not to have cats. The next step is to prune the catmint hard after its first flowering is over. If I do not prune, the stems flop, lose leaves and go dry, while new stems begin to grow from the base of the plant, and also from the lower half of the old stems. There is no new growth at the ends of the old stems, so there is no use leaving them on the plant.

Oddly enough, my cat, who often gardens with me and is sent out on vole patrol, does not like this plant. She like commercial dry catnip well enough. When I bought it I was going to put it in the vegetable garden, for her. The day I was planting it I called her over and picked a leaf for her to sniff. She pulled back sharply, then glared and stepped away, as if I was trying to poison her. I changed my mind then about where I was going to plant it and put it in the front of my raised garden bed. I knew they had nice flowers but had not planned to give it a starring role. She still avoids it. I do have neighborhood cats here too; we do not have a fence. The other cats have shown no interest and have not touched it.

I wonder if the "cattractive-ness" has been bred out of some of these cultivars?

Wow your cat doesn't like it...mine rolls in it all the time and even nibbles at it.

The explanation that leslie gave would be the same as I would do. If you shear them and place a nice strong plant infront it will help it stay in place.

You are just trying to shear to make a nice shape then let it flower. If you have stems you don't like then give it a haircut.

I like the idea of placing sprawlers in with the daylilies.
I may try some seedlings there.

Also it's funny you said that Walkers Low was a description. I also fell for that name thinking it would be more compact than others I have tried. lol

Yes, I'd like to know where this "Walker's Low" garden is! Maybe the "low country": South Carolina?

Yes, in the front yard beds with the 5 Walker's Low catmints I will prune them down in bloom if they get too messy looking. They have nice attractive colored foliage that looks good against the thick blue green foliage of the sedums and contrast nicely with the strappy green foliage of the small daylilies in this bed. The bed is edged on one side in boxwoods, so although it is a curved 3 quarter circle bed it is fairly formal.

In the more cottage-like daylily beds in the backyard, I prune when I can squeeze into the beds and/or without getting stains all over my clothes from the dls & hardy lilies in the beds. I wasn't kidding about the squashed catmints! These beds are really full, starting with bulbs in the spring, yarrows, knautia, crocosmias, gauras etc, in summer and mums & asters in the fall. Pruning is actually a ballet dance, bouncing around on one foot with sheers in hand.

Was just reading that the way to prune catmints after they flower is to lift up their skirts and prune from the bottom up. Think that would be neater than my usual procedure of just shearing them back. In either case they will rebloom which they won't do if just left to their own devices.

This is an opportunity to recommend the book "The Well-Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy DiSabato-Aust" who has tried every pruning, pinching shearing and dead-heading technique on many, many plants. She spells out how a plant responds to all sorts of 'interventions', whether and when do it, and how the plant responds...in growth habit, bloom time, and increased/decreased flower production.
Go ahead and buy it new....there are older versions on the web which are not very much less expensive than the newer addition.

Great book.
Marie

Walkers Low and Six Hills Giant are generally sheared back after their first bloom to make way for the second bloom. You can see the new growth coming from the center of the plant.

Mine also flop more is they're too wet. I think they like it on the dry side.

My catmint are already huge and out of control. The rain makes them almost bowl shaped...very flat in the middle. Do you suggest cutting them down to the ground? Light pruning doesn't help with their shape. I've never had to do it this early. We've had a dry spring and they've been happy. Would dividing them help reduce their size in the future?

I started a garden last year, and this year, all of my catmint is growing foliage without any blooms. My neighbor's catmint has been in full bloom for a month (it is now the beginning of June in NY), but each of my catmint plants have been bloom-free. Any ideas why? They all get at least 5 hours of sun, and the other sun-loving, drought-tolerant plants around them are doing fine. Help!