Wild thyme, ornament & condiment!

A creeping mat of evergreen leaves smothered in pale to bright pink flowers all summer: wild thyme (Thymus serpyllum) covers rocky ground and wall nooks while supplying leaves and blooms for grilled meat, fish, sauces and soups. Give it full sun and light, dry soil, and it flowers abundantly without watering.

Wild thyme at a glance

Name	Thymus serpyllum
Family	Lamiaceae
Type	creeping plant, cover plant
Height	1 ½ feet (15 cm)
Exposure	full sun
Soil	light, well-drained
Foliage	evergreen
Flowering	summer

Pink blossoms and tasty evergreen foliage are part of its appeal all year round.

Sowing and planting wild thyme

Wild thyme is a perfect plant to cover the ground, since it crawls with dense leafage. It adapts well to rocky ground, along edges of flower beds, and also grows well in pots and in nooks of a stone wall.

Sowing wild thyme

To prepare wild thyme seedlings, you must sow in a nursery in spring, or better yet, directly in the ground at the end of the frost spells.

If you have prepared seedlings in a nursery, you can transplant the seedlings in the ground 5 to 6 weeks after sprouting.

Planting of wild thyme purchased in pots or in nursery pots

The best season to plant your wild thyme is spring or at the end of summer.

• Wild thyme loves light, even poor soil, with sand and/or rocks.
• Full sun exposure is required to produce beautiful flowers.

Propagating wild thyme

Wild thyme can be propagated through crown division at the beginning of spring.

Pruning wild thyme

Wild thyme can grow with no care at all, but these best practices to care and prune them will increase and extend their blooming.

• Remove dead branches at the beginning of spring.
• To sustain the impression of dense coverage, prune drastically before fall and after the blooming.

Help your slow-growing wild thyme by weeding around it to stifle out competition.

• Avoid cutting upright thymes back into bare, leafless wood, since old stems rarely resprout; creeping wild thyme is more forgiving, as its trailing stems root where they touch soil and can regenerate.
• Shearing off faded flowerheads prompts a second flush of bloom in certain perennials, such as catmint, salvia and hardy geraniums, though many other plants will not rebloom after cutting back.
• When shearing mat-forming subshrubs such as thyme or lavender, cut only into stems that still carry leaves, because these plants regenerate poorly from bare, leafless old wood.
• With many mat-forming perennials, a woody, bare centre signals that cutting back harder will not help; instead, lift the clump, discard the old core, and replant the vigorous outer pieces.

Harvesting wild thyme

You can cut stems off your wild 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.

• For mat-forming plants that root along creeping stems, cut what you need with scissors or secateurs rather than tugging, since pulling can lift or tear the rooted mat.
• Keep every cut above leafy growth, because the bare woody base of an old wild thyme stem rarely reshoots.
• A common gardening guideline is to harvest the main crop of leafy herbs just before the flower buds open, though peak essential-oil content actually varies by species and growing conditions.
• Foraging guides commonly advise taking a little from many spots across a patch rather than stripping one area bare, a widely recommended practice intended to leave enough plants to regenerate the stand.

Wild thyme, job by job

Wild thyme asks for very little, but each task has its moment. Here is what to do and when.

Left entirely to itself, wild thyme still grows, but pruning is what keeps the carpet dense and the flowering long.

Which wild thyme to plant? A comparison of the main cultivars

Beyond the pink-flowered wild form, garden centres offer named creeping thymes that differ mainly in flower colour, leaf tone and how tightly they hug the ground. All are edible and all want the same full sun and sharp drainage, so choose on looks and on where you mean to plant them.

Using wild thyme in the kitchen

Both flowers and leaves are used. They can be eaten cooked or raw, they are delicious when fresh.

Wild thyme leaves, just like common thyme, are perfect for seasoning barbecues, gravy, fish and even infusions.

Wild thyme flowers are also used for their fragrance, although not as intense as in leaves. They make up for this with their beauty, and are edible ornaments to all meals, especially salads.

A few flowers sprinkled on grilled meat or atop a mixed salad are beautiful!

• Thyme leaves are small enough that no chopping is needed: hold a sprig by its tip and run your fingers down the stem, and the leaves come away in a shower.
• Whole sprigs of woody herbs such as thyme, rosemary, or oregano can be added to stews and soups at the start of cooking, with their wiry stems lifted out before serving.

Keeping wild thyme

There are two ways to keep it, either leaves are dried, or they are frozen in a freezer.

In the first case, place collected wild thyme 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.

• Tie the stems into small loose bundles and hang them upside down so air circulates freely and no damp pocket forms in the middle.
• When air-drying culinary herbs such as basil, oregano, or mint, the leaves are dry enough to strip and store once they crumble easily off the stem at a light touch.

Learn more about wild thyme

Wild thyme is one of the most beautiful kinds of thyme. It flowers abundantly all summer long, and produces cute little flowers in hues of pale pink to bright pink.

It is often used in infusions, and also in cooking to flavor sauces and soups.

Native to the Mediterranean area, wild thyme is very fragrant and is particularly well suited to seasoning grilled meat and fish.

As a garden helper, it will repel the large white butterfly that destroys cabbage patches.

• Health: health benefits of thyme

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