LOL. When I read the thread feed about topping the catnip I expected to see a feline doing the job for you. That’s what happens to catnip in our house…or in our yard. The little feline badnesses are very good at keeping such plants under control. A little too under control, in some cases.

That’s how the catnip wound up in my indoor garden. It was easier to move the catnip than try to explain to the little monsters that if you tear it all up today, there won’t be any tomorrow. Sugar will just sit and nibble and pull them up until they are all uprooted. They are also why I got into topping catnip, since it can be a bit unruly if left unpruned, which isn’t a problem outside, but inside, things like space management and footprint size matter more to me.

Besides, it’s entertaining to me when they all meet me at the closet door looking for a “sample’. Izzy in particular is very picky about making sure she has her “tea time” and won’t let up until she has a little catnip perfume behind each ear.

Grubbycup

This is excellent advice. I think many people are so excited to see their plants grow tall and can’t imagine cutting them back (topping). Your photos clearly show why this should be done.

I should have mentioned that “topping” a tree is the cutting a tree back to a trunk with a few stubby branches, a poor practice that is not good for the tree. Don’t do that. The article above is about a pruning style unfortunately also commonly called “topping” that is a perfectly legitimate skill to have.

I love my catnip, and grow a lot to make catnip mice. It was growing wild here when we came. It’s a potent strain of unknown origin. Cutting the plants tops and drying the leaves get you an early start on the harvest. It works great with basil too!

Great pictures to show the process. We call it pinching or pinching out – something you probably wouldn’t think of doing to a tree. Depending on the tree, of course. (Topping trees is an abomination, and those who do it should be, er, pinched. Hard.) Pinching also increases fullness in plants like garden mums (though growers use plant hormones to achieve that big bouquet effect). Cheers, from one urban gardener to another.

Thank you all for your kind comments. I haven’t heard it used nearly as often, but I like the term “pinching” better than “topping”, now we just have to get everyone else to go along with us.

When I saw you had a post about topping, I imagined tree-surgeon activity. ‘Pinching out’ is also the term I’m familiar with – and sounds much less daunting. The idea of ladders and chain saws didn’t fit with catnip either!

I’m looking for a good strain of catnip for my kitty. Can anyone suggest a place to get some good seeds.

Thank you,
John Just

Hey John, there are a couple a ways to go about it. First, catnip is a pretty standard herb, so most seed companies have some.
Or, another way to go about it is to get some regular dried catnip from a few different manufacturers, see which the kitties like best, and then sift through that one for seed pods or seeds. Catnip doesn’t have the best germination rates, so start more seeds than you need plants.

Wow, awesome technique and great pictures that show in detail how this is done. Thank you for such detailed information.

Our cats, in addition to all of the cats in the neighborhood, just loved the catnip that we used to have in our yard. Unfortunately they completely mauled it to death by laying in it and tearing it out, and continue to do this every time we put a new pot of it out.

So we just ordered 5 pounds of seeds hoping that if we plant enough of it they won’t be able to kill it all this time. We plan to grow it in pots and maybe sit it on top of the carport where it can get a lot of sun, and where we can keep the cats out of it until it grows large enough that they won’t be able to kill it. This should help a lot knowing how to prune it. Thanks again.

Question. On catnip plants that one would buy from a store that already have tall and narrow stems that is already making them top heavy, would you recommend pruning down lower at one of the lower splits or maybe at the bottom split and starting the growth over. Seems like this might be the best way to go.

BTW, while pruning our store bought cat nip plants the other day, our youngest cat who is usually quite mild, got so excited from playing in the catnip while we were trying to prune it, that she bit us to try to keep us away from her catnip.

Good luck with the catnip Ed. With so many seeds, you can plant a few in each pot, and still keep plenty in reserve for future attempts.

Catnip is usually pretty tolerant of abuse, and can recover from pretty enthusuastic pruning. Make sure that there are enough leaves and plant remaining to recover.

Thanks. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We planted seeds 3 long containers full of seeds and 16 three gallon containers and used less than half a pound, so still have plenty of seeds left for future attempts.

Have two sides of our yard that are about 180 feet long each that now have shrubs along them that we’re wanting to plant the catnip inside of, but first we’re experimenting with different soil combinations to see which one it grows the best in to get them started, after which we will probably plant the rest of them in that.

Can hardly wait until those catnips start growing so we can prune them using this technique and turn them into some beautiful bushy plants that hopefully even the most persistent of cats won’t be able to destroy.