Easy tips for choosing and growing thyme

Brush against or tread upon a planting of thyme and a pungent aroma wafts upward. This fragrant herb, used for centuries in the kitchen, is a care-free charmer in the garden, withstanding drought, heat, strong sun, and even light foot traffic. Here are some easy tips to help you choose and grow thyme like a pro!

• Its leaves always look tidy and become smothered under tiny flowers for several weeks in late spring and early summer.
• Varying in height from 5 to 20 centimetres (two to eight inches), thyme can serve many purposes. The smallest grow easily between paving stones, cascade over the edges of containers, or fit in the crevices of a sunny stone wall.
• The more upright varieties form little mounds of foliage that are perfect for edging a sunny bed of other herbs, flowers, or even roses.

Thyme leaves may be golden, green, blue-grey, bronze, or silver and they smell like everything from woodsy nutmeg to refreshing lemon. The flowers are often pastels, in white, pink, or lavender, although some varieties bloom in hot pink or red.

• Woolly thyme (Thymus pseudolanuginosus) forms a dense carpet of fuzzy grey-green foliage with white flowers.
• The popular creeping thyme (T. serpyllum.), also called mother-of-thyme, forms a 10-centimetre-tall (four-inch-tall) groundcover with olive leaves and pink or purple flowers.
• One cultivar, 'Cocci neus', spreads a dull crimson layer of flowers over its deep green leaves.
• Lemon thyme (T. × citriodorus) stands a little taller, reaching 15 centimetres (six inches), with variegated green-and-yellow lemon-scented leaves topped by tiny white or lilac flowers.
• The thyme commonly used in cooking, T. vulgari, is a wiry 20-centimetre-tall (eight-inch-tall) plant with lavender flowers.
• The cultivar 'Argentus' has green leaves edged in silver, while those of 'Aureus' are rimmed in gold.

• Because thyme is slow to mature from seedlings, it is best to purchase starter plants in spring. Once established, thyme travels quickly by sending out runners, so set plants 30 centimetres (one foot) apart in a well-drained, sandy soil.
• Until plantlets show signs of new growth, keep the soil barely moist. Thyme can contract the fatal fungal disease root rot when grown in soggy soil, so if your soil is clay, amend it with sand and organic matter to improve drainage, or grow thyme in containers of fast-draining soil.
• After flowers fade, trim old growth to encourage new shoots.
• In harsh winter areas, mulch with evergreen boughs after the ground freezes to prevent wind and cold damage.
• In spring or fall, you can easily divide plants by digging and transplanting rooted chunks into prepared soil at the same depth at which they grew.
• Thyme is pest-free except for occasional visits from cottony, sap-sucking mealybugs, which can be controlled by rinsing them off the foliage with a forceful spray of water from a hose.

Thyme is a flavourful herb with uses in the garden and the kitchen. Keep these tips in mind and enjoy some freshly harvested thyme in your next meal.