Raceme catnip 'Linghem'

Nepeta racemosa 'Linghem'

Description: Raceme catnip with grey-green, fragrant foliage. Blue-purple flowers on arching, upward-pointing flower stalks. Nice border and border plant.

Height: 30-35 cm

Flowering time: In trials at the Swedish Agricultural University in Alnarp outside Malmö, the variety blooms in May-June. If it is cut back after flowering, it continues to bloom well into autumn.

Flower colour: Blue-purple.

History: The raceme catnip is collected in Tyresö, at a brown house with green doors and a plot that slopes steeply down to the water. The house was originally a sports cabin and was ready to move into in 1938. It was built by Aase's parents and Aase remembers that when she was a child the family cycled from their home in Stockholm to the cabin. When the garden began to be planted in the late 1930s, the roses for the large flower bed in front of the house were bought from a commercial garden, but all the other plants in the garden were given to the family by neighbors, friends and relatives.

The raceme catnip Aase's mother Margit got from her parental home Udala outside Linghem in Östergötland. The parental home was a small house built in 1917 by Aase's grandmother's parents. We don't know how old the nepeta is, but it is certain that it was in Linghem in 1938 when Aase's mother brought a section of it to the newly built house in Tyresö. At the same time, she also received shares of an Acontium and a mallow. She planted the raceme catnip in a flower bed at the east end of the cottage and it has grown there for all these years, throwing its blue-purple flowers over the stone edge of the flower bed. Over the years, it has also had to move out into more flower beds in the garden.

Collected: In Tyresö, Södermanland.

Cultivation instructions: Sunny and well-drained location. If the plants are cut back after flowering, it will return with more flowers.

Sales: The variety is available for purchase in commercial gardens and garden centers from spring 2015.