A Love Song to Wooly Thyme

Call this a love song to the ‘little guys’ of the gardening world. Often it is tempting to obsess about spectacular bloomers like lilies, iris, mums, those thorny divas aka roses or other giants of the nursery shelves. But in truth, a wise gardener eventually discovers it is sometimes the little things we grow that really can make all the difference.

Take wooly thyme. Nobody would accuse this perennial herb of being flamboyant. But lately I’ve been spotting it everywhere, not just in our G-scale railroad layout, but in rock gardens and along paths of all descriptions. Our oldest daughter, a Northern Michigan gardener, first put us on to the stuff. The herbaceous groundcover was so successful in her own garden, despite her harsh winters, that she gifted me with a healthy-sized pot for my birthday.

A couple seasons later, I can’t say enough about this tight-curled, modest little plant that reaches out with such quiet persistence to fill its surroundings. In several seasons, a few transplanted and divided plugs can have an enormous impact on a landscape. Wooly thyme is subtle. The wiry leaves are an indescribable gray-green that brings out the best in the mulch or rock around it. Then there’s the texture. The plant’s cushiony mound may appear fragile, but it quickly rebounds underfoot. The smell is pungent with a hint of the Mediterranean—as familiar and yet unique as a well-prepared pasta.

Butterfly bush or Scotch broom, even glads and high-maintenance dahlias make an instant statement on sheer size alone. But wooly thyme is about the long haul. I’ve known people like that. What would life be without ‘em?