Has anyone tried to grow a creeping thyme lawn?

[sizeofalentil]

We've got a tiny, tiny patch of lawn (about the size of two king-sized beds) and I can't decide whether to do a wilflower or creeping thyme lawn.

Creeping thyme takes ages to grow, from what I've read, so it might look a bit shit for ages -and weeds could grow in anyway. At least with wildflowers if anything else invades it it'll look deliberate!

I'd prefer creeping thyme but not sure if it's a massive faff.

I'm watching with interest as I've seen this on Pinterest and I looks lush (pardon the pun )

I was thinking of sewing it in pots/trays and then transplanting it. Plug plants are too expensive for me to do even this little patch with them (and it not look a bit baldy…).

The seeds are cheap on eBay.

Or maybe I could get a few pots of it and do near the edges and hope it'll spread out?

Ooh, I'm watching with interest too - I want to do a sort of chequerboard path with creeping thyme between the stones (as per Pinterest ) so I'd be very interested to see if it actually works.

I've ordered some seeds. Going to try and grow them in the green house then pot them out next year. Playing the long game!

My game plan is "buy lots of seeds. Scatter between paths. Weed occasionally. See what happens".

We'll see what works!

I was tempted to do the same but heard that thyme is hard to get started.

Also, are we having a thyme-growining competition? It sounds like it.

We could call it…

The Tests of Thyme…

I really hope not. Because then I would have to admit to DH that I've made grand plans for the garden without consulting him ask DH to do heavy lifting and digging and things. And it takes a while to get him to work up to doing that sort of thing. Plus I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to convince him that me mucking about with buckets of concrete in the garden is the best idea either!

whispers I've just secretly hired someone to come and do all my digging and paint a few walls rather than ask DH.

Sometimes he doesn't like that my grand plans result in him doing hours of work on his days off… :p

Sorry to piss on everyone's grand ideas but I tried this. I planted reasonably decent sized plants, and it looked fantastic for about two months. I had to weed it constantly, because if I slacked at all and the weeds became anything more than seedlings they would rip out the thyme when I pulled it out.

Then the cats decided they liked to dig it up and pee in it, and we started to get dead patches and lumps. Then a whole load of them died for no apparent reason, and the rest started to look really, really straggly and messy.

Within a year I had ripped it up.

Never again.

Also, whatever anyone says it really doesn't like being stepped on!

Liara - I'm 99% sure that my cats will pee on this and kill it too. I'm not worried about weeds though.

Maybe I'll go back to my plan b and plant wildflowers instead.

Bum. Well, it's going between bits of concrete. Worst case scenario I'll rip it out and put sand down instead :D

I thought one of the advantages was that it wouldn't allow any weeds to surface?

I had an impressive creeping thyme which has been drowned due to the amount of rain we had in the last 12 months. I think a whole lawn would be too ambitious without constant maintenance, but I am not a very good gardener.

This is worth a read sissinghurstcastle.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/the-thyme-lawns-revisted/

I tried with the creeping thym and did not have much success. I saw people making lawn with regular thym and it looks fantastic, They used lots of mulch until it covered a reasonable area and very few weeds came up.

I am growing a centre tiny centre piece in my patio Carden and it has been very expensive to plant even for this. I agree that it does not stand much walking on. I would cover it with gravel, (pea shingle and plant in patches. That way you have something to walk on, it will cost less and is easy to weed.

If you start by covering the whole area with pea shingle you can the. Dig our random area to plant your thymes.

I grew a creeping thyme lawn in the front garden of a previous house, but luckily for me I had the funds to do it the easy way. I bought 25x £5 small pots at first and planted them out in a 5x5 square each about 35cm apart (it wasn't a big lawn). After a year they had grown nicely but there were 16 larger gaps in the coverage because I had laid them out in a square formation rather than shifting each row by half a length (I hope you get what I am talking about) so I bought another 16 plants and popped them in the gaps. After another year we had pretty much full coverage.

Weeding was always an issue but it was starting to get less by the time we left. You do need to get down on your knees and root out the dandelions that are trying to grow through, but eventually with vigilance the thyme will win over the weeds.

I think if it's just an ornamental lawn that you never walk on, it could work - but if it needs to take any kind of traffic, it will struggle. Also, if you're in a wet area of the country, it may rot - it needs a fair bit of drainage to be really good.

You can buy small plugs of thyme quite cheap - my local garden centres have them 7 for £10.