Catmint is a favorite plant to use for landscapers and casual gardeners because of the beauty of the foliage and potential health benefits.
However, it isn’t the easiest plant to manage and has been noted to flop. Leaving many gardeners asking, “Why is my Catmint Floppy?”
Catmint can flop for a few different reasons and can be corrected over time with care. Your Catmint can be floppy because the plant is diseased or weak, it has gotten too vigorous and needs to be pruned or sheered, or the environment is not conducive for this plant to thrive in.
Whatever the reasons for your Catmint plant flopping, continue reading this article for the most efficient ways to determine the issue, and ways to fix it.
What Is Catmint?
Catmint is a nice purple perennial, and one with a long growth period; it usually goes from early spring, until late fall!
These plants can get quite large, with some varieties being large plants, so the plants are very full.
Not only is the herb catmint known for it’s medicinal properties, but also like most other herbs, does promote calm to those who consume it, including humans.
Catmint is usually used the same as lavender, and because their calming and stress relieving properties can help people who are unable to sleep, feeling overwhelmed, or too stressed out.
A less well-known fact about this plant, is it usually has anti-inflammatory properties, and usually often with great relief is used for many complaints including, stomach aches, hives, respiratory issues, arthritis, and many other ailments.
Why Is My Catmint Floppy?
As stated above, catmint can usually grow pretty tall, commonly 2-3 feet.
And, if it isn’t cared for and maintained, you can expect it to flop and look more like weeds.
If you’re having problems with floppy catmint, here are some issues you may need to keep an eye out for.
Lack of Sun
Catmint like full sun and while there not bad at all in partial shade, anything less than that will also really weaken your plant and start drooping over.
Lack of Maintenance
The catmint plant has tons of growth potential, and is always growing up and out; your plants can easily get a little out of control, if you don’t shear and prune, and will flop over and look like nasty weeds.
Old Age
As catmint matures it will have weak seams and roots and as such, the plant will bend at the weak point and flop down.
This occurs more in windy or rainy conditions when more strain is placed on the delicate flower.
Dying Plants
If your plant is dying (typically from the root up) you usually won’t notice anything until all of a sudden your plant is droopy.
There are numerous reasons your plant could be dying, but we will cover that in an upcoming section.
How Do You Stop Catmint from Flopping
Once you’ve started to notice that your catmint is beginning to part at the roots, or flopping over, it’s probably time to start doing something about it. There are several methods to help keep your plants upright and prevent too much flopping around.
Cutting Back
You might want to think about cutting back your catmint, which is basically just trimming the steams, or pruning your plant.
You can do this with a pair of garden scissors and just take off a few inches off the top of the new “flopping” steams.
When you do this, you are taking away some weight from the steam and allowing the plant to stand straighter. You are also getting rid of any possibly damaged and weak looking steams.
Cutting back the stems of your catmint allows new budding flowers and leaves to potentially grow and fill out some more evenly, allowing for new weights and variation in growth.
Added Benefits of “Cutting Back” or “Pruning” Your Catmint?
When you shear back your plant, you’re again encouraging healthier new growth that will help to keep the plant thriving well into fall, if not longer, than the older plants which have not been sheared.
Another benefit, and one that seems to bring gardeners great joy, is the lower stem growth that follows your plant cut back.
Since all of the energy of the plant has gone towards re-growing multiple steams after sheering, the new steams don’t grow as long, so maintenance becomes that much easier.
Tieing Them Up
Sometimes just pruning your catmint is not going to solve the issue of the taller more floppy catmint plants. In this situation you will need to stake up your catmint and tie it straight with a stake and gardening rope.
You will want to put the stake directly next to your plant’s main root and tie the root to the sturdy stake .
Staking the catmint will give it a strong position to establish, allowing the rest of the plant to grow while you are helping it become strong or at least get it through the season until you can cut it all back.
Something to think about: since the plant can grow out to three feet in diameter, some people will use multiple stakes or fencing and create a square or circle under the plant to try to keep from letting the steams flop over.
Removing the Dead Bulb or Flower
Removing the dead flower is part of sheering your plants.
But rather than sheering the plant all the way down to the root, just remove the browning or dead flower.
Removing the rotting flower will help the flopping of the plant an awful lot.
Why Is My Catmint Turning Brown and Flopping?
There are times when you might see your catmint turning brown and flopping over.
This is the sign of a dead flower and plant and is usually caused by root rot.
Too Much Water
Root rot can be caused by a few things, but one of them is sitting water around the root of your plant without some sort of drainage mechanism in place.
This could be an issue more with houseplants, but if your garden has the wrong soil or setup then it could also be a problem.
Fungi or Mold
Fungi is one of the leading causes of root rot and if a Catmint plant is suffering from rot it can die quickly if you don’t address the first signs.
One of the first signs of root rot caused by a fungal infection is floppy flowers.
Another sign is a powdery mildew build-up around the root of the plant and along the steam.
Bug Infestation
A bug infestation is a major problem when it comes to the death of a catmint plant.
Spider mites, Thrips, and other eating insects are abundant and can decimate our catmint garden if not dealt with in a timely manner.
If you find your catmint limp but also not flowering, or even worse the stem and roots are brown, you may have a bigger issue than what you realize, and it’s very important that nothing is left to chance!
Summing Things Up
Your catmint plant might just be droopy because it hasn’t been cared for correctly or outside pests and other outside conditions are ruining it’s growth.
With a little bit of work and a lot of TLC, your plant can back to being beautiful in no time!