What is thyme and how to care for it?

The unpretentious thyme is loved not only for its medicinal properties, but also for its aesthetic appearance - miniature flowers of pastel shades become an adornment of any garden. Growing it both in the open field and at home is not very difficult.

Thyme, also known as thyme or thyme, is a member of the lamb family. This plant looks like a grass or undersized shrub. The culture blooms from June to August, and bears fruit from August to September. The height of the shrub does not exceed 35 centimeters. Dense stems can be woody recumbent, or they can be raised, outwardly resembling trunks.

Some of the shoots that remain sterile simply lie on the ground, while the other is covered with capitate or elongated inflorescences of white, purple, yellow or scarlet shades. The fruits of thyme are boxes with four dark nuts inside, which have a bitter taste and a specific smell. The root of the thyme is tap and woody. The leaf blades, depending on the variety, have different sizes and shapes, but are tough, almost leathery.

The thyme genus unites several hundred species, so it is not surprising that this culture grows almost everywhere. In nature, thyme prefers different conditions: forest glades and edges, steppes and rocky slopes, mountain tundra and sandy steppes. In general, there are more than 170 types of culture on the territory of Russia. Experts identify special species that live in the Urals, Siberia, Dagestan and Crimea. The frost-resistant plant grows both in Transbaikalia and in Western Siberia. Most often it is found in the European part of the country: Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov, Saratov, Volgograd and Nizhny Novgorod regions. You can also find thyme in Bashkiria and Tatarstan.

The varieties of thyme - species and varieties - are very extensive. The most popular among gardeners is thyme ordinary, it is medicinal or medicinal... The plant, exceeding 15 centimeters in height, is covered with leaves and flowering stems pubescent from the seamy side. Common thyme subspecies are Alba with white flowers and Splendens with burgundy buds... This also includes mossy elfin - a dwarf bush, the height of which does not exceed 5 centimeters, but the compact pillow of inflorescences reaches a diameter of 15 centimeters.

Creeping thyme during flowering, it is usually covered with lilac-pink inflorescences. The height of this perennial plant is 15 centimeters. Early thyme, also known as wild thyme, is subdivided into Minor with small flowers and groundcover Pseudolanuginosus, which forms a flower carpet. Lemon thyme is often referred to as lemon-scented thyme. A natural hybrid of flea and common thyme, it reaches a size of 30 centimeters and is covered with pinkish inflorescences.

For subarctic thyme loose inflorescences of dark purple flowers in the form of bells are characteristic. The strong-smelling variety blooms from July to August. Japanese thyme stands out with elliptical leaf blades and pink inflorescences.

It is better to plant seeds in the country in an area with low acidity - nutritious, light and well-drained. For thyme, you need to choose a well-lit place. The selected bed is prepared already in the fall: it is dug up, cleaned of weed roots and fed with organic and mineral fertilizers. It is better to use infused manure, compost and potash-phosphorus mixtures. In the spring, from mid to late May, when the soil in the garden softens, it is dug up again and watered with a urea solution prepared from 20 grams of the drug and a liter of water. Direct disembarkation can begin after 24 hours.

The planting material is planted in rows, the gap between which is kept equal to 30-40 centimeters. The bed is sprinkled with river sand and covered with transparent film, which will create a greenhouse effect. The first shoots will appear in 2 weeks. If they are too thick, they can be thinned out or transplanted. It is worth mentioning that thyme can be preliminarily grown as seedlings at home. In this case, sowing is organized in the second half of March.

The grains, mixed with river grains of sand in a ratio of 1: 3, are spread over the surface of the soil used to fill the container. A soil mixture for cacti, enriched with black soil, or a disinfected mixture of peat and sand in equal proportions, is suitable. You do not need to deepen the seeds - just sprinkle them on top with a thin layer of sand. The contents of the container are gently moistened from the sprayer, covered with glass and moved to a well-lit and heated space. When the seedlings appear in the container, the shelter will need to be removed, and the container itself must be rearranged to a cooler place. Transplanting seedlings to an unprotected garden bed is organized a couple of months later.

It is quite possible to grow thyme and just on the windowsill. The pot for this purpose is selected such that its diameter does not exceed 15 centimeters. A drainage layer 20-30 millimeters thick is formed at the bottom of the tank. A suitable soil mixture is poured over it, which is moistened and used to distribute the seeds. They, in turn, hide under a half-centimeter layer of the substrate. The container is also covered with glass or cling film, which are removed when the seedlings appear.

Growing thyme at home on a windowsill or outdoors requires approximately the same care.

Irrigation of the plant should be moderate and carried out only when necessary, but during the flowering period it is customary to increase the frequency of watering. If precipitation often falls in summer, then it is possible, in general, to abandon artificial irrigation. To avoid stagnation, the soil will have to be loosened periodically.

Growing thyme on poor soil is impossible without top dressing. Usually, gardeners use horny flour, after the introduction of which they carry out mulching. If the condition of the soil is satisfactory, then it will be sufficient to enrich the garden bed once a year in early spring. In the first year, urea is used for this purpose, and in the next year, liquid cow dung or potassium humate is used.

You can transplant a plant to a new place both in summer and autumn, but not on the hottest days. It is important to be in time before the cold weather, so that the bush takes root and takes root. To fully care for thyme, it will also need to be pruned. It is required to shorten the stems by 2/3 at the beginning of the spring season, as well as after flowering. We must not forget about weeding, which gets rid of weeds.

Propagation of thyme is obtained in three main ways: cuttings, division and seed method. If the division of the bush is chosen, then the thyme is carefully removed from the ground and divided into 2-3 parts with a shovel. You have to act carefully so as not to harm the root system, which is located close to the surface.

Cutting requires the preparation of fragments of shoots up to 5 centimeters long. The workpieces are planted in pre-prepared soil and covered with a glass jar to create a greenhouse effect. In order for the cutting to take root, it will need to be watered moderately, without causing decay, and, if necessary, ventilated.

Thyme, which contains essential oils, initially has good protection against insects and diseases. Nevertheless, a number of pests still overcome it, especially if the care rules are regularly violated. So, caterpillars of the meadow moth gnaw the leaf blades and envelop them in cobwebs. In addition, they injure buds with stems. To prevent their appearance, weeds should be regularly removed and digging should be carried out in autumn.

To cope with the sandy lingering damaging the aboveground parts of the bush, it will be necessary to arrange baits with poisonous pesticides. Aphids suck sap from young plants, thereby accelerating their death. To destroy the pest, the drugs "Biotlin" and "Antitlin" are used. To get rid of the weevils that lay their larvae directly in the buds, you have to use Fitoverm. Improper care of thyme leads to the development of fungal diseases. For their treatment, plants are treated with fungicides "Horus", "Topaz", "Fundazol" and others.