Thyme is a plant that has everything going for it. It's tough, low-maintenance and readily available at nurseries and even chain stores. It's good-looking and, in our climate, evergreen. It's tasty and very useful in the kitchen. It comes in dozens of varieties. It's disease free and prefers soil that is slightly on the dry side. Its flowers feed bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects. It can take light foot traffic and so can be used as a ground cover, instead of grass which has a much shorter list of virtues. And it smells good.

Every plant has some drawbacks and I'm racking my brain for a downside to thyme. The only thing I can come up with is that if you don't shear it or mow it all through winter, it will look scraggly. But about three weeks after you do get around to tending it, it will be back to fabulous and will stay that way for a month till it's time to mow again, so that's not much of a negative.

Thyme will grow in one of two different ways, depending on the variety. For a ground cover, look for thymus serpyllum or "mother-of-thyme". This variety has very dark green leaves, blooms in either lavender, pink or white and stays low to the ground, growing about 3 to 6 inches tall. It spreads fairly quickly without being invasive. In the first six months, while it's still filling in, you will need to weed to keep out more aggressive plants but from then on, it will suppress all but the toughest invaders.

You could also use thymus pseudolanuginosus, which thank goodness has a common name "woolly thyme". Woolly thyme has a fine white down on its blue-green leaves. In small patches, it's quite beautiful but I found that larger expanses gave a somewhat somber look to the garden, especially in winter when it was so lush and colorful in comparison to the other plants. Subdued blue-green and gray is a leaf color that will have a definite effect on the garden. A little soothes the eye and blends brighter surrounding colors together. Too much makes folks feel they should have worn black.

The other thyme species are tiny little shrubs that grow about 8 to 10 inches tall and wide. I haven't stepped on them but I do know they are an excellent choice for tucking into empty spaces in a flower border. If you take a sizzors to them about once a month, they will look like perfect little mounds or hedges or chesspieces, if that's what you so desire, and the whole five minutes you're grooming them you will be surrounded by the delicious aroma they release when bruised or cut.

The silver thyme pictured below is one of the small shrub varieties. We grow some plants that are a bit unusual but it is this clump of common thyme that first draws the attention of visitors here. I believe that's because it's easy to keep well-groomed, so it usually looks neat and tidy; an uncommon feature in our yard. It also spills graciously from the border onto the path with the white edges on its leaves making it dazzling when the sun strikes it, which doesn't hurt either.

So go ahead and grow some thyme. If you find that guests in your garden praise it before your latest bit of perennial exotica, just smile and give them a cutting. They're bound to notice the other plants sooner or later.

Text and images Copyright 1998 Cyndi Kirkpatrick. All rights reserved