Plant · P-162

Creeping Thyme

Thymus serpyllum

Creeping Thyme forms a dense, low mat that tolerates being walked on and can even be grown as a short fragrant lawn, and from June to September it becomes one of the strongest bee and butterfly plants around, hosting two blue butterfly species and drawing honey bees hard. Its leaves are a genuine, if milder, culinary thyme - good raw in salads, as a flavouring, or as tea - and deer and rabbits both tend to leave it alone. It needs sharp drainage to survive: excellent in gravel, paver joints or on a dry slope, but prone to root rot wherever the ground stays moist, and hot humid summers push it close to its heat limit even where drainage is right.