What nipped my catnip ?

by Ellie
(Cape Town)

my medicine cupboard bared

I am exploring soporific and calming herbs as I have bad insomnia (sleeping 4 hours a night) and anxious thoughts. I went out and bought expensive but gorgeously thriving lavender and catnip plants. I put them in my semi shade nursery to adjust. The next day something had removed most of the catnip leaves, nipped off at the stem... it was devastation. To eat so much it must have been one very large caterpillar or snail too fat for those slender stalks to support its weight. ...I could not find such a beast in the pot, under it or in the vicinity. I put the catnip pot under netting in the trailer and it began to revive and put out new shoots. Got it just in time... then I began to wonder why it has the name 'catnip' and started to read...I found out that cats even rip catnip plants from the ground in their enthusiastic attempts to devour it, its like an addictive drug for cats... the spot under my window where I had placed the newly bought catnip pot, was inches away from the window that my miracle cat Twenty ( a real survivor of three dog attacks) uses to enter and leave the house at two am.... Has my sleuthing found the culprit or should I continue my search... I wonder.