![]() Lemon thyme is also a handy stand-in for lemon zest. (Cristina Byvik and Howard Lipin / U-T illustration)Ĭulinary thymes include common thyme (also called English or mother of thyme) and lemon thyme, which makes a refreshing, delicate, hint-of-lemon tea. They’re familiar to cooks and are dried for their rich herbal flavor. The handsome shrubs fit in well not only in herb gardens but also between vegetable plants and flowers. The culinary thymes are upright growers, to 6-12 inches in height and up to 24 inches in width. Think of thyme as a three-purpose herb family, with culinary, creeping and decorative varieties. Here in San Diego, thyme seeds may be difficult to germinate, so I recommend buying pots of thyme for your garden. It’s always found on sunny slopes, in well-drained soils, which tells us what thyme needs in our gardens. It also thrives in poor, rocky soil in other parts of the world, including Northern Africa and the Scottish highlands. Thyme has grown wild on the hillsides surrounding the Mediterranean Sea for millenniums. In days long past, ladies embroidered sprigs of thyme (for courage) with little bees (for industriousness) on the garments their brave knights wore into battle. The Greeks burned thyme as a purifying incense. The word thymus comes from a Greek word meaning courage. Its pungent oil, thymol, is a powerful antiseptic that was used in battlefield hospitals as a disinfectant. Thyme tea was recommended for coughs and colds. The tiny-leafed, shrubby herb has been used for at least 2,000 years, probably much longer, to flavor foods and for medicinal purposes. ![]() Thymus vulgaris is the Latin name for common thyme. Among them, you’re sure to find - quite literally - a thyme for every purpose. It readily cross-pollinates in the wild, but there are about 50 dependable named varieties available to gardeners. Thymes are members of a vast family of beautiful and useful herbs, a family with more than 350 varieties. Yet there are many other varieties grown especially for landscaping purposes. Most of us know thyme as the dried kitchen herb that family chefs crumble into soups, stews and salad dressings. Halleck Horticultural.Whether you’re creating flower beds, planting a backyard bounty of vegetables, or putting in a useful kitchen herb garden, one of the best all-around choices is the herb thyme. You can plant thyme as a trailing container plant.Ĭity Of Allen Sustainable Landscape Series Notes: Thymes not only provide evergreen foliage in the garden, but also offer up a bounty of blooms. Cultivars with variegated leaves are available.įeatures: bushy habit fragrant, decorative foliage purple, pink or white flowers vulgaris (common thyme) forms a bushy mound of dark green leaves and purple, pink or white flowers. ‘ Lanuginosis’ (wooly thyme) is a mat-forming selection with fuzzy, gray-green leaves and pink or purple flowers. ‘ Elfin’ forms tiny, dense mounds of foliage. serpyllum mother of thyme, creeping thyme, wild thyme) is a low-growing variety with purple flowers. ![]() Cultivars with silver- or gold-margined leaves are available. x citriodorus (lemon-scented thyme) forms a mound of lemon-scented, dark green foliage with pale pink flowers. Creeping thyme makes a good lawn substitute for areas with reduced foot traffic. Thymes work well at the front of borders, between or beside paving stones, in rock gardens, on rock walls and in containers. Once thymes finish flowering, shear them back by about one-half to encourage new growth and prevent them from becoming too woody. Do not overwater plants that sit in wet soil or receive too much irrigation will die out. It is beneficial to work compost and expanded shale into the soil. The soil should be of poor to average fertility, neutral to alkaline and very well drained.
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