Growing Thyme at Home

Thyme plant care

Thyme plant is fairly easy to grow, provided we have a well-drained soil with partial or full day exposure to direct sunlight. The things to consider are the following:

Thyme can be grown from seeds or cuttings. Growing from seed is difficult for an amateur gardener, as the germination rates are low. Thyme can be easily propagated by getting healthy and mature stems, cuttings or divisions from a mature, healthy and well established plant. Read more
Choosing the right spot for planting our thymes is important, as it is a highly invasive plant that can extend to unwanted parts of our property. We must be proactive and restrict the plant through natural obstacles (rocks etc.) well before it finds the way to invade other parts of our yard. Moreover, full sun and good soil drainage are necessary for growing healthy thyme plants, as the plants often suffer and die from root rots.
After planting our thymes, if there are no rainfalls, we can water them when the soil is completely dry, especially during the first year. However, we must not over-irrigate and never make the soil soggy.
We can harvest fresh leaves from late spring to early autumn. Keep in mind that if we cut the plants very short, they will be unprotected against winter cold and may not survive the winter.
Although the plant can perform well in the average soil, we can support its efforts by adding a balanced fertilizer during spring or autumn and irrigate well.
In most cases, the upper part of the plant will shrink and wither during winter, but it will regenerate from the next spring.
After 5-6 years, you will have to destroy your mature thyme plants and plant new seedlings.

Thyme plants can be propagated by seeds or cuttings. There are pros and cons in each method. If you do not have your own healthy plants to divide, layer or get stems, then starting your plants from seeds will cost much less than buying thousands of stems. On the other hand, growing thyme from seed will result in not true to type plants. Growing from seed is an affordable but time consuming method that has a certain degree of risk, and needs high quality management in order to ensure plant uniformity. Starting the plants from cuttings costs more, but you can have true to type plants and be ready to plant them in the field in less time.

Thyme Plant Spacing and Number of Plants per hectare

Regardless of whether we started our plants from seed or cuttings, we transplant either during autumn or spring, but definitely 3 weeks after the last frost. In every hectare (1 hectare = 2,47 acres = 10.000 square meters), on average we have about 50.000 – 75.000 plants. We normally plant in rows that will have a distance range of 20-30 inches (50-75 cm). The distances between the plants inside the row range from to 8-16 inches (20-40 cm). Planting is done through machines or by hand.

You can enrich this article by leaving a comment or photo of your thyme plants spacing, planting distances and plant population.