Barely knee-high, thyme is a small woody perennial with tiny aromatic leaves, best known for seasoning grilled meat and fish. Its one real demand is light, well-drained soil in full sun where water never sits around the roots; meet that and you can cut sprigs for the kitchen all year round.
| Name | Thymus |
|---|---|
| Family | Lamiaceae |
| Type | condiment |
| Height | 8 to 16 inches (20 to 40 cm) |
| Exposure | full sun |
| Soil | light, well-drained |
| Foliage | evergreen |
| Flowering | spring |
| Harvest | all year |
Pruning and caring for it help ensure that your thyme grows well.
It is possible to sow thyme from seeds, and to plant it from young plants purchased in nursery pots. Since it is resilient to drought and resists heat, it is very easy to grow.
To prepare seedlings, you must sow in a nursery in spring.
Once the young plants are well developed, or if you’ve purchased young plants directly in nursery pots, transplant them ideally in spring, preferably in light and well-draining soil.
Thyme is an excellent herb for growing in pots. The most important thing to remember is that this is a “dry land” plant.
It won’t do very well if the soil stays wet for a long time.
If you do need a saucer to protect furniture underneath, then uplift the pot up with more gravel or clay pebbles between pot and saucer.
Thyme can be propagated through crown division at the beginning of spring. This technique helps boost thyme production, and it also serves to regenerate old bunches.
Thyme is a plant that is easy to grow and care for.
You can cut stems off your thyme whenever you need some all year round.
It is best to cut stems from recent growth to stimulate appearance of new shoots.
It is best to select the younger stems and collect them in the morning before dawn, which is when flavors are most concentrated.
Help your slow-growing thyme by weeding around it to stifle out competition.
To maintain its dense, compact shape, wait for the end of the blooming season to prune it delicately.
However, if you are growing thyme in order to harvest it, it is best to prune it before flowering.
Thyme asks for very little, but each job has its moment. Here is what the article recommends, and why the timing matters.
| Job | When | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Sowing in a nursery | Spring | Seedlings sprout 2 to 3 weeks after sowing |
| Planting out | Spring, in light well-draining soil | Young plants settle and establish |
| Crown division | Beginning of spring | More production and old bunches regenerated |
| Pruning for the kitchen | Before flowering | Leaves harvested at their best for cooking |
| Harvesting | All year round, best during bloom | Most concentrated flavours |
Match the job to the season and a single plant will keep the kitchen supplied.
Very resistant to virtually all diseases, thyme’s main enemy is a type of fungus that makes it rot.
Thyme is generally an excellent companion plant in the vegetable patch, where it tends to fend off fungus and insects. For instance, it repels “large white“, the butterfly responsible for devastating cabbage harvests.
For rot-prone Mediterranean herbs and alpines such as lavender, thyme and saxifrage, mulch with coarse grit or gravel rather than compost or bark, which can hold moisture against the woody collar.
There are over 350 species of thyme! Thymus x citriodorus is much appreciated for its lemon-like smell.
Certain varieties are favored for their gold, mottled or silver colored leaves.
During hikes around the Mediterranean, you’ll often come across wild thyme, a delicious cousin of our cultivated thyme.
Thymes split roughly into bushy kitchen types and flat creeping ones for paths and gravel. The table below sets out the forms most often found on garden centre benches, so you can match leaf, flower and habit to the spot you have in mind.
| Variety | Foliage | Flower colour | Habit | Best use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ‘Aureus’ (golden lemon thyme) | Gold-splashed green | Pale lilac-pink | Bushy, low mound | Pots and cooking |
| ‘Silver Posie’ | Green, white-margined | Pale pink | Bushy, low mound | Kitchen and edging |
| ‘Silver Queen’ | Cream-variegated | Pale pink | Bushy, low mound | Lemon-scented cooking |
| ‘Doone Valley’ | Green, gold-blotched | Lilac-purple | Spreading mat | Ground cover, lemon scent |
| ‘Archer’s Gold’ | Bright golden yellow | Pale pink | Low spreading mound | Containers, front of border |
| ‘Coccineus’ | Small, dark green | Deep crimson-magenta | Flat creeping mat | Gravel, paving, bees |
Thyme can be harvested all year long, but its flavors are most concentrated when it is blooming.
Its flowers are always a welcome decoration in summer dishes and salads.
There are two ways to keep it. It’s possible to either dry the leaves or store them in a freezer.
In the first case, place collected stems in a dry and ventilated place until they are completely dry. After that, they can be ground and kept in a jar for several months.
Freezing has the advantage of preserving their flavor, and thyme can keep this way for several months.
Native to the Mediterranean area, thyme is very fragrant and is famous for seasoning grilled meat and fish.
It is often used in infusions for its digestion-supporting properties, and also in cooking to flavor sauces and soups.
It is a rather hardy plant that resists temperatures below freezing and diseases very well.
Thyme, with scientific name Thymus officinalis, has certain beneficial medicinal properties, for example it eases digestion and relaxes the body.
No need to water, thyme will be perfectly happy with poor and dry soil. It grows naturally in desolate arid places.
