A gorgeous, indestructible, low-maintenance, high-performance, cost-effective garden: Is that too much to ask?

MONEY WELL SPENT | There are people who derive tremendous satisfaction from garden chores, but I’m not one of them. I love garden design and history, and enjoyed researching and planning our own garden with my husband, who is a garden designer. I loved choosing the plants and installing them, and I don’t mind occasional watering or weeding. But after that, I want to spend my time doing other things. I need my garden to be bulletproof: a gorgeous, indestructible, low-maintenance, high-performance environment—and of course I expect my investment in plants to be cost-effective.

As it turns out, there are plants that offer that kind of bang for your buck. One of them is Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’, a variety of catmint selected as the herbaceous perennial plant of the year in Britain in 2007, which is when we decided to plant 150 square feet of it in our backyard.

In its first round of blooming, May through July, we look out on a wispy carpet of spiky blue flowers around 18 inches high. In July, we cut back the plants, and they respond by blooming again, this time into mid October.

Though nepeta is a drug for some cats, it hasn’t attracted unwanted felines. It is a magnet for honeybees, which we love. Unlike the much taller Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’, the only time our plants go floppy is after a heavy rain. If we let them dry and pick them up gently from underneath, they return to their natural position.

We started our field of nepeta with plants in four-inch pots set 18 inches apart, and the entire 150 square feet filled in nicely the first season, crowding out weeds as they grew. With few pests and no problems—low maintenance, non-invasive, a five-month blooming season and plants that return annually—Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ offers max value with minimum energy expenditure. Now, that’s bulletproof.— C. Rule

You can find Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’ at the following nurseries: Gardenworks, four-inch pots are $3.99, www.gardenworks.ca; Maple Leaf Garden Centre, five-inch pots are $5.99, www.mapleleafgardencentre.ca; David Hunter Garden Center, four-inch pots are $3.99, www.davidhuntergardencenters.com.

Photo: C. Rule