Getting to Know Calamintha Nepeta ‘Montrose White’ - September 2026

I usually will open up Erin the Impatient Gardener's "Garden Stroll" YouTube videos in one tab, move it to my second screen and let it play while I fiddle around with some other stuff in other tabs.  On a couple of recent videos in her garden, she pauses and talks about a bunch of specific plants.  Many of them, I'm familiar with and some of them I have in my own garden.  

But, the past few videos, there's been a plant that she talked about (and has in her garden) that is also something that Nat has recently pointed out on one of our neighborhood walks as 'a nice plant'.  

That plant is Calamintha Nepeta ‘Montrose White’.

Here at the 14:44 mark in her August Garden Stroll, she talks about Montrose White and how it is starting to bloom.  Late...in August.  And, how she interplants it with Sesleria Autumnalis and Alliums.  Hmmm...I like those other two?

Then, in this week's September Garden Stroll video, she once again, talks up Calamintha 'Montrose White'.  Here at the 11:52 mark, she does it again.  (Embedded below)

She says 

1.  that it is looking its "absolute best".  

2.  how she uses Calamintha 'Montrose White' for repetition.  

3.  she uses it 'all over the garden'.

4.  that 'Montrose White' is sterile, so it won't re-seed.

5.  that it is a great pollinator plant.

And, while she doesn't blog much these days, she *does* have a post up about Calamintha 'Montrose White'.    She was a skeptic, but has become a convert.  From her post:

It is difficult to describe this plant because it’s not bold, and it generally looks terrible in a nursery pot. But put it in the ground, walk away and come back one day to a fluffy, ethereal, frothy mass that seems to have come from nowhere. It manages to be both airy and grounding at the same time.

Fall planting season is approaching fast.  And, so, too, are late-season sales.  This will go on my shopping list. 

And, I think I know where I'd put it:  replace the Garden Ghost Artemisia.  They have wide-open centers and don't look so good this season.