Plant profile - calamintha

POSTED 17th November 2025

Aromatic, dainty-leaved plants, with typical Lamiaceae flowers, white, pink or blue. Good drought resistance, flowers attractive to butterflies and bees and the leaves can be dried for use in pot pourri. Some plants previously known as calamintha are now known as acinos , thymus or clinopodium, or vice versa.

‘Calamintha is a plant which can become a favourite. It disappears in winter, but in summer sends up many branching stems which become stiff and wiry, set with small green leaves and covered with clouds of tiny, pale blue flowers. Throughout late summer and autumn they are crowded with stumbling honey bees. They look well in the herb border surrounded with golden or variegated thymes and matt-leaved sages, which all look their best in the latter part of the season.’ Beth Chatto

Wildlife credentials

All are a valuable source of nectar and pollen to a range of pollinators over an extended summer season. They are also larval foodplants for the small, very attractive, mint moth. Calamintha nepeta (aka Clinopodium nepeta) is a very scarce British native found primarily on the sandy and gravel ridges of northeast Essex: it could therefore justifiably be seen as the native botanical icon of our part of the world.

Just some of our range:

Calamintha grandiflora - useful for edge of border, neat little bushes of fresh green foliage, dotted with rose-pink blossoms, triple the size of Calamintha nepeta, all summer. Height and spread 25cm x 25cm.

Calamintha grandiflora

Calamintha nepeta 'Blue Cloud' - this form has deeper blue flowers, the two planted together in groups create a pretty shaded effect. Height and spread 40cm x 20cm.

Calamintha nepeta 'Blue Cloud'

Calamintha nepeta - charming in late summer with clouds of tiny pale blue flowers on bushy aromatic plants. Loved by bees. Height and spread 40cm x 20cm.

Calamintha nepeta

Calamintha nepeta white-flowered - a compact perennial with aromatic grey-green leaves and white flowers. Delicate looking and pretty. Height and spread 30cm x 20cm.