It occurs each summer season. Regardless of how a lot new seed you place down or how usually you water, there’ll come a degree the place your lush inexperienced garden turns right into a crunchy brown panorama.
The place when you walked barefoot on dewy grass, you’re now cautious to place your footwear on earlier than venturing exterior.
Oof, my ft harm simply taking a look at it.
Summer time temperatures are rising for longer durations with every passing 12 months. It’s no shock then that your garden is extra usually scorched grass than a tender, inexperienced yard.
Together with these hovering temperatures, we’re experiencing longer stretches with out rain. Municipalities all around the nation ration water through the summer season. They impose bans on washing vehicles and utilizing sprinklers, making it even tougher to take care of a inexperienced garden.
Have you ever ever stopped to suppose if there could be a greater method, a better method?
After all, you would let nature take its course, cease mowing altogether and return your garden to the wild.
Some individuals do and are rewarded by the scads of wildflowers, birds, bees and butterflies that pop up. And with skyrocketing fuel costs, not feeding the garden mower appears higher daily. Plus, you’d get that one, two, or three hours again that it takes to mow your garden every week.
Why can we do that to ourselves?
Sadly, although, many people merely don’t have that possibility.
Once I lived in one other a part of Pennsylvania, I keep in mind coming dwelling one night to a freshly mown garden, and a quotation caught on my door. The borough charged me a wonderful for letting my grass get too lengthy and warned that the following time the borough needed to mow it, the wonderful would double. Sheesh!
Municipality guidelines or strict HOAs can usually stand in the way in which of any makes an attempt to rewild a garden on the town.
However you’ve got one other glorious possibility that may hold town council comfortable, save water, require no mowing, and nonetheless look nice – creeping thyme.
Thyme? As within the stuff I placed on my roast rooster?
Sure, that thyme, or no less than a wide range of it.
Xeriscaping
Yearly, extra fed-up yard warriors flip to xeriscaping out of a want to preserve time and water. Xeriscaping is the usage of drought-tolerant crops (most require little or no irrigation to outlive) in landscapes. Creeping thyme is likely one of the extra widespread ground-covers utilized in xeriscaping, and it’s not onerous to see why.
Advantages of Creeping Thyme as a Floor Cowl
- It’s creeping, which suggests it is going to unfold and fill in your garden when left to its personal gadgets.
- Creeping thyme can also be drought-resistant, so your yard will hold plugging alongside if you happen to get lengthy stretches with none rain.
- It takes a lot much less water to ascertain and proceed to develop thyme. As anybody who has ever planted grass seed is aware of, it takes tons of constant watering for it to take and unfold.
- Creeping thyme will outcompete different crops for vitamins and water, choking out weeds that might in any other case look unpleasant.
- Like turf, creeping thyme can deal with foot visitors, making it a great alternative.
- Creeping thyme grows low to the bottom, so that you don’t must mow it. (Most varieties don’t attain over 4”.) Though, if you happen to desire, you’ll be able to mow as soon as any flowers have died off.
- Most creeping thyme varieties flower, making it a pollinator-friendly turf alternative. Gardeners will get pleasure from the advantages of getting extra pollinators round.
- You’ll be able to eat your garden.
- And it smells a lot nicer than grass. Individuals like to wax on poetically concerning the odor of freshly lower grass. However I’ll guess they’ve by no means walked throughout a sunbaked garden of creeping thyme.
What Creeping Thyme Varieties Work Greatest?
There are round 300 cultivars of thyme, and plenty of of them are creeping varieties. Listed here are just a few options for thyme that works finest as a floor cowl.
Red Creeping Thyme – That is by far the most well-liked thyme selection used for creeping lawns.
Elfin Thyme – one of many tiniest thymes, Elfin thyme grows slowly, which makes it excellent for planting round areas you don’t need utterly lined with thyme, equivalent to stepping stones and walkways.
Hal’s Woolly Thyme – quick-growing creeping thyme that may deal with foot visitors and can make for a beautiful garden.
After all, there are loads extra varieties to contemplate earlier than selecting one. It’s finest to succeed in out to a neighborhood landscaper for recommendation on what varieties fit your space finest.
Getting Rid of Your Current Turf
Changing your current turf with thyme is not any picnic. It requires equal measures of endurance and onerous work. And buying sufficient thyme plugs to fill in your yard may be costly. For that reason, chances are you’ll need to begin with a small portion of your yard. You’ll be able to then select to increase this space with every passing season.
You’ll want to take away the present turf by digging it up or killing off the grass. Neither possibility is straightforward however will probably be nicely value it whenever you’re having fun with your summer season with out worrying about mowing the garden.
The best method of eliminating your current turf is much less labor-intensive however requires probably the most endurance.
Lay down layers of cardboard or newspaper after which mulch closely. Water these layers with a hose till they’re utterly soaked, then weigh them down with rocks, bricks or pavers.
It is going to take a complete season for the grass to die beneath your “lasagna” layers, however by subsequent spring, all you could do is poke holes by means of any remaining newspaper and plant your thyme plugs.
Leaving the newspaper or cardboard in place to proceed to interrupt down acts as a weed barrier, permitting your new thyme crops to get established with out competitors from weeds.
You’ll must water your thyme frequently till it begins to develop and unfold. Often, by the second season, you’ll now not must water your thyme, and it’ll start to unfold a lot faster.
To Mow or To not Mow
After a few seasons, your thyme will probably be a thick, aromatic carpet. Some, however not all, creeping thymes flower. It’s possible you’ll select to mow your thyme as soon as it has completed flowering. Ready till after the flowers die again permits bees and butterflies entry to the pollen. It additionally assists with self-seeding the soil with thyme seeds from the flowers.
Causes Why a Creeping Thyme Garden Might Not Be Proper for You
Earlier than you run out to your native landscapers to start out ordering thyme plugs, take a second to consider the place you reside and the world you need to convert with xeriscaping.
- Thyme is a hardy perennial however received’t make it by means of the winter in USDA Hardiness Zones 3 and decrease. If you happen to’re in Zone 4 by means of 10, you’re good to go.
- When you have an particularly shady garden, creeping thyme might not be the best choice. Thyme loves the solar and wishes between 4-6 hours of direct solar every day to maintain from getting leggy.
- Thyme can also be prone to root rot, so in case your garden has drainage points or stays soggy after rain, chances are you’ll find yourself shedding your thyme.
This splendidly aromatic herb provides a fantastic resolution to these trying to reduce their garden’s environmental affect. And sure, despite the fact that it’s a giant funding of money and time upfront, you’ll get pleasure from your low-maintenance garden for years to come back.
Get the well-known Rural Sprout publication delivered to your inbox.
Together with Sunday ramblings from our editor, Tracey, in addition to “What’s Up Wednesday” our roundup of what’s in season and new article updates and alerts.
Tracey Besemer
Hey there, my identify is Tracey. I’m the editor-in-chief right here at Rural Sprout.A lot of our readers already know me from our widespread Sunday newsletters. (You might be signed up for our newsletters, proper?) Every Sunday, I ship a pleasant missive from my neck of the woods in Pennsylvania. It’s a bit like sitting on the entrance porch with a pal, discussing our gardens over a cup of tea.
Initially from upstate NY, I’m now an honorary Pennsylvanian, having lived right here for the previous 18 years.
I grew up spending weekends on my dad’s off-the-grid homestead, the place I spent a lot of my childhood roaming the woods and getting my fingers soiled.
I realized how you can do issues most little youngsters haven’t carried out in over a century.
Whether or not it was urgent apples within the fall for do-it-yourself cider, trudging by means of the early spring snows of upstate NY to faucet timber for maple syrup, or canning all the pieces that grew within the backyard in the summertime – there have been at all times new adventures with every season.
As an grownup, I proceed to attract on the abilities I realized as a child. I like my Wi-Fi and understanding pizza is simply a cellphone name away. And I’m okay with by no means revisiting the journey that’s utilizing an outhouse in the course of January.
Today, I are typically virtually a homesteader.
I take an eclectic method to homesteading, using fashionable comfort the place I would like and selecting the country methods of my childhood as they swimsuit me.
I’m a agency believer in self-sufficiency, irrespective of the place you reside, and the facility and pleasure that comes from doing one thing for your self.
I’ve at all times had a backyard, even when the one house accessible was the roof of my condominium constructing. I’ve been knitting since age seven, and I spin and dye my very own wool as nicely. If you happen to can ferment it, it’s in all probability in my pantry or on my kitchen counter. And I can’t go quite a lot of days with out a journey into the woods on the lookout for mushrooms, edible crops, or the sound of the wind within the timber.
You’ll be able to comply with my private (loopy) homesteading adventures on Almost a Homesteader and Instagram as @aahomesteader.
Peace, love, and grime beneath your nails,
Tracey