Replacing your existing turf with thyme is no picnic. It’s best to reach out to a local landscaper for advice on what varieties suit your area best. Of course, there are plenty more varieties to consider before choosing one. Hal’s Woolly Thyme – quick-growing creeping thyme that can handle foot traffic and will make for a wonderful lawn. Red Creeping Thyme – This is by far the most popular thyme variety used for creeping lawns.Įlfin Thyme – one of the tiniest thymes, Elfin thyme grows slowly, which makes it perfect for planting around areas you don’t want completely covered with thyme, such as stepping stones and walkways. Here are a few suggestions for thyme that works best as a ground cover. There are around 300 cultivars of thyme, and many of them are creeping varieties. But I’ll bet they’ve never walked across a sunbaked lawn of creeping thyme. People love to wax on poetically about the smell of freshly cut grass. And it smells so much nicer than grass.Gardeners will enjoy the benefits of having more pollinators around. Most creeping thyme varieties flower, making it a pollinator-friendly turf replacement.(Most varieties don’t reach over 4”.) Although, if you prefer, you can mow once any flowers have died off. Creeping thyme grows low to the ground, so you don’t have to mow it.Like turf, creeping thyme can handle foot traffic, making it an ideal replacement.Creeping thyme will outcompete other plants for nutrients and water, choking out weeds that would otherwise look unsightly.As anyone who has ever planted grass seed knows, it takes tons of consistent watering for it to take and spread. It takes much less water to establish and continue to grow thyme.Creeping thyme is also drought-resistant, so your yard will keep plugging along if you get long stretches without any rain.It’s creeping, which means it will spread and fill in your lawn when left to its own devices.Benefits of Creeping Thyme as a Ground Cover Creeping thyme is one of the more popular ground-covers used in xeriscaping, and it’s not hard to see why. Xeriscaping is the use of drought-tolerant plants (most require little or no irrigation to survive) in landscapes. XeriscapingĮvery year, more fed-up yard warriors turn to xeriscaping out of a desire to conserve time and water. Yes, that thyme, or at least a variety of it. Thyme? As in the stuff I put on my roast chicken? Municipality rules or strict HOAs can often stand in the way of any attempts to rewild a lawn in town.īut you have another excellent option that will keep the city council happy, save water, require no mowing, and still look great – creeping thyme. The borough charged me a fine for letting my grass get too long and warned that the next time the borough had to mow it, the fine would double. When I lived in another part of Pennsylvania, I remember coming home one evening to a freshly mown lawn, and a citation stuck on my door. Why do we do this to ourselves? Unfortunately, though, many of us simply don’t have that option. Plus, you would get that one, two, or three hours back that it takes to mow your lawn each week. And with skyrocketing gas prices, not feeding the lawn mower looks better every day. Some people do and are rewarded by the scads of wildflowers, birds, bees and butterflies that pop up. Of course, you could let nature take its course, stop mowing altogether and return your lawn to the wild. Have you ever stopped to think if there might be a better way, an easier way? They impose bans on washing cars and using sprinklers, making it even harder to maintain a green lawn. Municipalities all over the country ration water during the summer. It’s no surprise then that your lawn is more often scorched grass than a soft, green yard.Īlong with these soaring temperatures, we’re experiencing longer stretches without rain. Summer temperatures are increasing for longer periods with each passing year. Where once you walked barefoot on dewy grass, you’re now careful to put your shoes on before venturing outside. No matter how much new seed you put down or how often you water, there will come a point where your lush green lawn turns into a crunchy brown landscape.

Woolly creeping thyme