Got thyme for the garden?

Between 300 and 4(0 species in the Thymus family

THERE JUST never seems to be enough thyme in the
garden. Yes, the spelling is correct and no, I haven’t been

spending too much time in Ye Olde Victoria.

As most of you no doubt
know, thyme (thymus sp.) is a
garden plant and this was another
of my feeble attempts at a hu-
morous start. I doubt any of you
were caught looking at your time
pieces.

Even so, J am sure that quite a
few of you have less thyme than
you should. There are levels of
awareness weil beyond ‘'‘parsley,
sage, rosemary and thyme,” and
only a handful of gardeners have
accepted those varieties not com-
monly seen in the herb garden.

in fact, there are somewhere
between 300 and 400 species of
very hardy, herbaceous plants and
small, woody shrubs numbered in
the Thymus family. While com-
snon thyme or thymus vulgaris is
the most widely grown, it is
among the least attractive.

Take the Mother of Thyme or (.
drucei’s “formerly ¢  serpylium),
for example. While these are
among the casiest and most ver-
satile plants in the garden for their
size, they are not well known.
Many people have stared at the
magnificent late spring to carly
summer carpets of red, pink or
white flowers in admiration and
walked away unaware of how eas-
ily it was obtained.

There are many named varieties
of this particular species. One of
the best is td. “Coccineus”’ with
its bright, purplish-crimson
flowers forming a mass cf rich
color, Others worth mentioning
are t.d. ‘‘Pink Chiniz,”’ a rose-
ted form, td. “Arnie Hail’ in

GEST SELEC}

Geoff
Tobiasson

OVER THE GARDEN GAT

flesh pink and t.d. “‘Afbus”’ for a
white.

Another creeping thyme worth
looking at is ¢t. praecox ‘‘Bress-
ingham Seedling’’ (aka et.
doerfleri). This robust introduc-
tion from the famous Blooms of
Bressingham gardens grows like a
weed, but you would never find it
unwanted. its pinkish-mauve
flowers completely hide its grey-
green leaves in May through June.

Woolly Thyme, ¢.
psuedolanuginosus, is my favorite
plant to use around slabs of stone
or concrete in the walkway. It
never puts on much of a show in
the floral department, but this is
more than made up for by the
thick, ground-hugging mat of
woolly grey foliage. It tolerates an

amazing amount of abuse from
foot traffic and works like
nothing else to soften the hard
lines of stone and concrete.

There are upright, shrubby
forms as well. They may still be
diminutive, most not reaching
more than six or eight inches in
height, but they add an interesting
dimension to the garden, especial-
ty in the case of the rock garden.

A case in point is Lemon
Thyme, ¢. citriodorus. Varieties
such as t.c. ‘‘Aureus’’ with its
bright yellow leaves and t.c.
“Silver Queen’’ in white and
green, act as welcome accents dur-
ing those months when the more
colorful, flowering varieties are
not in bloom.

Most of the thymes will tolerate

a wide range of growing condi-
tions. It seems as long as they
have a minimum of three hours of
direct sun a day and anvthing but
the boggiest or driest of soils, they
will do just fine. If you are stuck
on perfection, they do best in full
sun with well-drained, lighter
soils. .
They are not heavy feeders; in
fact, they tend to throw better
displays when slightly starved. A
light dusting with bonemeal in
mid-fall should do the trick; the
added benefit of calcium will help
to keep the pH (acid) levels closer
to the preferred range.

As you can see, while we may
have all the thyme in the world,
there is precious little of it put to
good use in the garden. If you
spend a little time poking around
in a few -garderis or gardening
books you will be amazed at the
number of reaily good plants there
are oui there.

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