Thymus vulgaris
Thyme
Common names: Common thyme, Garden thyme
Photo: Isidre blanc · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
Description
Common thyme is a low, hardy subshrub with tiny leaves and a strong, spicy aroma, a cornerstone of Mediterranean cooking and a magnet for bees when it flowers pink. It thrives even in lean soil and does well at a sunny bed edge or in a herb pot.
Care instructions
Set it in a fully sunny, dry spot with free-draining, calcareous soil; it cannot cope with waterlogging at all. Water sparingly and cut it back by a third after flowering so it stays compact and does not go woody. Harvest the shoot tips at their most aromatic shortly before flowering in June on a sunny morning.
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
sandy, well-drained, lime-loving, lean, dry
Feeding
Light feeder
Companion planting
Good neighbors
nightshade family (Solanaceae)
particularly well establishedYou will find that basil next to tomato and pepper improves taste and keeps whiteflies and aphids away.
For example PotatoTomatoSweet pepperCocktail tomatoEggplantCape gooseberry and 9 more species in the catalogue
Source: classic companion planting (DACH-Gartenpraxis)
cabbage family (Brassicaceae)
You will notice that the intense scent of basil, thyme, and others confuses the cabbage whitefly and keeps it away from the cabbage family.
For example KohlrabiRadishKalebroccolicauliflowerbeet greens and 32 more species in the catalogue
Source: bio-gardening intercropping practice
Rather not
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
Some of these explanations were machine-translated.
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From the magazine
Building Garden Paths and Bed Edgings
Why the base layer decides how long your paths last, and how living edgings of box, lavender or thyme can replace the hard stone border.
Growing and pruning thyme: keep it lean, cut it right
Thyme is easy once you understand where it comes from: sun, poor soil, little water. The way you prune it decides whether it lasts ten years or goes bald.
Flowering lawns and herb lawns: the low maintenance alternative
Grasses plus low, tread tolerant flowers: white clover, daisies, creeping thyme, selfheal. Four to six cuts a year at 6 to 8 cm, no feed, no scarifying. How to sow a flowering lawn from scratch or overseed it into the sward you already have.