Every cat is dif­fer­ent

Some plants cause a brief eupho­ria in cats, mak­ing them excit­ed and play­ful. Don’t wor­ry: cats can­not become addict­ed to these plants.

There is no sin­gle “mag­ic” plant that attracts every cat with­out excep­tion. One cat may love cat­nip, while anoth­er may show lit­tle or no inter­est in it. So, it’s nec­es­sary to test and exper­i­ment.

Addi­tion­al­ly, some cats pre­fer live plants, while oth­ers pre­fer dried ones. It some­times takes time for a cat to take an inter­est in a par­tic­u­lar plant. Patience is there­fore key.

Final­ly, all these plants are con­sid­ered safe only when cats chew on them with­out ingest­ing them.

Nepe­ta cataria (Cat­nip)

All cat own­ers are, of course, famil­iar with cat­nip. This plant is wide­ly avail­able for pur­chase in dried form or as a spray.

If you plant Nepe­ta cataria in your gar­den, your cat will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to chew on its fresh leaves and roll around the plant.

Cats pre­fer Nepe­ta cataria to most oth­er Nepe­ta vari­eties because it is rich in a chem­i­cal com­pound called “alpha-nepeta­lac­tone.” Pop­u­lar cul­ti­vars and hybrids of Nepe­ta (Nepe­ta x faassenii) gen­er­al­ly have low to mod­er­ate lev­els of alpha-nepeta­lac­tone.

Nepe­ta cataria is edi­ble and can be con­sumed in small quan­ti­ties, such as in herbal tea. This plant is a nat­ur­al rem­e­dy for improv­ing sleep qual­i­ty and reliev­ing diges­tive issues.

Actini­dia polyga­ma (Matatabi)

This species of kiwi, a climb­ing plant with green and sil­very-white foliage, is high­ly appre­ci­at­ed by many cats.

Matatabi sticks or pow­der made from young matatabi plants are an excel­lent choice to please your cat.

Actini­dia polyga­ma is rarely avail­able for sale, per­haps because its fruit does not taste like tra­di­tion­al kiwis, but rather like a sweet pep­per with a slight­ly spicy fla­vor.

Oth­er kiwi species, such as Actini­dia kolomik­ta, for exam­ple, can also attract cats to some extent.

Teu­crium marum (Cat thyme)

This beau­ti­ful plant with sil­very ever­green foliage and pleas­ant­ly scent­ed pink flow­ers is unknown to most cat own­ers.

Cat thyme grows very com­pact­ly and can be plant­ed in a pot or a rock gar­den. Cats also like it in dried form, so cat thyme can be har­vest­ed in sum­mer to let cats enjoy its scent dur­ing win­ter as well.

Cat thyme is not edi­ble, but it is used in home­opa­thy.

Pole­mo­ni­um spp. (Jacob’s lad­der)

Pole­mo­ni­um is a short-lived peren­ni­al plant that gives off a dis­tinc­tive scent that some cats find appeal­ing.

The plant is con­sid­ered edi­ble (roots, young leaves) and has med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties.

Most pop­u­lar vari­eties: Pole­mo­ni­um caeruleum et Pole­mo­ni­um rep­tans (a creep­ing form).

Vale­ri­ana offic­i­nalis (Valer­ian)

Valer­ian is a med­i­c­i­nal plant well known for its calm­ing and relax­ing prop­er­ties. How­ev­er, in some cats, valer­ian and in par­tic­u­lar a dried valer­ian root, pro­duces a euphor­ic effect sim­i­lar to that of cat­nip.

The plant is easy to grow, but it grows quite tall and can even reach a height of 1.5 meters. In addi­tion, valer­ian has a strong, rather unpleas­ant odor that most peo­ple do not appre­ci­ate.

It may be more con­ve­nient not to plant valer­ian in the gar­den, but sim­ply to buy dried valer­ian root at a phar­ma­cy.