How to make your garden bloom

The West's best flowers for borders, beds, bouquets, and containers

20 favorite perennial flowers

These unfussy, long-lived plants pump out beautiful foliage and flowers year after year. Plant in fall or spring when cooler temperatures help them get a healthy start

Photo by Charles Mann
, Story by Kathleen Brenzel

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Catmint (Nepeta x faassenii)

Loose spikes of lavender-blue flowers cover the soft, silvery-green mounds in late spring and early summer.

As soon as blossoms fade, shear plants back by half, or cut faded flower stems to the ground to encourage rebloom.

Plants (to 1 foot tall) make attractive, informal hedges.

How to grow catmint