How to Pick the Perfect Variety of Thyme

Culinary Thyme

• 1

  Select French thyme for its robust flavor, as it is considered the best thyme for culinary uses. This thyme has a grey-green color and aromatic foliage with pink spring flowers. Or try English thyme, another classic cooking variety and a favorite of many chefs. This variety, very hardy to cold, is excellent for drying.

• 2

  Plant lemon thyme, widely used to flavor fish, chicken or oils, to add a lemony punch and fragrance to dishes. Its evergreen foliage is variegated green and yellow.

• 3

  Choose orange balsam thyme to add an unusual citrus flavor for soups and poultry. One of the taller varieties at a foot tall, this aromatic variety spills carelessly into pathways and over the rims of pots.

Ground-Cover Thyme

• 4

  Crowd out weeds with wooly thyme, which features ground-hugging, grey-blue foliage that spreads quickly in poor soil and requires little water to thrive once established. This ground cover thrives despite neglect.

• 5

  Fill in areas between steppingstones and over pathways with red creeping thyme or mother of thyme. The wiry, dense growth of this fast creeper explodes with flowers verging on red in color.

• 6

  Fill the space between pavers with elfin thyme, a ground cover with emerald green leaves that grows so closely together the texture seems spongy. The carpet-like plant, covered with pink flowers in the spring, grows quickly.

• 7

  Blend a similar fragrance to lemon thyme and the function of a quick ground cover with a Doone Valley thyme. Not grown for culinary purposes, this ground cover with yellow variegation to the leaves spreads quickly and takes on a reddish hue during the colder months of the year.