Herb Gardening: Popular Thyme Cultivars

The classic culinary herb thyme, Thymus vulgaris, has long been central to the cooking of almost all Mediterranean cultures, and its popularity as an essential herb has spread throughout Western society in recent centuries. Here are seven of the most important cultivars of thyme.

English Thyme

This is the most common form of thyme and the source of the flavor normally associated with thyme. English thyme is an easy to grow herb that looks attractive in any herb garden. English thyme, garden thyme and German thyme are all the names of the same cultivar.

Creeping Thyme

Of all the thyme cultivars, I think that creeping thyme is the most attractive to grow. This variety of cultivar grows prostrate to the ground and looks great spilling over a clay pot or trailing down a rock side. As you might expect, this cultivar of thyme looks great growing alongside creeping rosemary.

Summer Thyme

Summer thyme is a pretty strongly flavored cultivar of this herb that is particularly spicy and pungent. Unforgivably lame pun of a name aside, this is a great variety of thyme to have around if you like sharp herbal flavors.

Caribbean Thyme

This is the strongest flavored cultivar of thyme around. Although the flavor of Caribbean thyme is the same as English thyme, it's supposedly 10 times as powerful. As interesting as this thyme cultivar sounds, I have yet to run across it at herb festivals or for sale anywhere online, so consider picking a specimen up for yourself if you have the opportunity.

Lemon Thyme

Lemon thyme is probably the second most common thyme cultivar. It has a fairly strong lemon note of lemon and is an ideal herb for flavoring fresh fish.

Orange Thyme

As the name suggests, this cultivar of thyme has a distinct orange aroma and flavor. Similar to creeping thyme, this variety of thyme grows along the earth and makes of good ground cover a striking fragrance.

Silver Thyme

This attractive cultivar of thyme is a popular ornamental variety of the herb. This variety of thyme presents variegated leaves with white lining the otherwise light green leaves. This is a relatively slow growing herb that makes for a good potted patio plant. Silver thyme is still a perfectly acceptable culinary cultivar of thyme.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyme

http://www.djroger.com/thyme.htm

http://www.superbherbs.net/englishtyme.htm

http://www.nexthomegeneration.com/Thyme

http://www.finegardening.com/design/articles/thyme-the-fragrant-ground-cover.aspx

http://growingtaste.com/herbs/thyme.shtml