Episode 30: It's Time For Thyme
About This Episode
In this episode of Ask Grumpy, Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener, helps a reader find the best low-growing perennial for their garden.Plus, a rave about sedums.
Question Of The Week
Can you recommend a low growing perennial to plant between flagstones in our Maryland patio? I'd like something that will spread quickly, does not require mowing, and takes full sun.
Grumpy Gardener: I would suggest common thyme. It's wonderful little ground cover, has teeny little leaves, spreads along the ground, it's prostrate, it doesn't get much more than, maybe an inch tall. It's really good for filling in the cracks between stepping stones and things like that, it takes full sun, it doesn't need a whole lot of watering. It also doesn't like too much fertilizer, so you won't be doing a lot of work on that, and also the good thing about it is it has this wonderful thyme aroma. So it's easy to grow and you can get small plants at your garden center, and so if you ask me what's the plant, if it were my patio, that's the plant that I would pick.
Related: 20 Recipes That Will Help You Make the Most of Fresh Thyme
Plant Of The Week
When I say sedums, I could just say sedum, but there are so many different kinds of sedums that are great for different uses in your garden. Sedums are succulents, which means that they store a lot of water in their foliage and they don't need very much water from you and they're very easy to grow, they're not bothered by insects, pests, anything. I've never seen anything, eating on my sedums. There's lots of different kinds. Some are used as ground covers, they grow just flat along the ground, others grow taller. They grow into a little moundy shape. They can be from an inch tall to about 24 inches tall. They have lots of different foliage colors. They can be green, yellow, bronze, reddish, plus, they also have very showy blooms. The blooms can be white, yellow, orange, pink, red; most sedums will bloom in mid to late summer, but some of them bloom in spring. And, as an extra plus, butterflies love them. When my sedums are in bloom, I have these yellow sulfur butterflies, and there are just swarms of them all over the sedums. So, they're very good plants. What do they need?
Lots of sun. You can get by with maybe a half day of sun, but the more sun they get, the better they grow.
Regular garden soil, but it has to be well-drained, especially in the winter. If the soil is just staying soaked in the wintertime, they can rot, so if you give them just sun and well drained soil.
There's so many different kinds out there, you can research them on the internet, go into your garden centers. Most garden centers have a really good selection of sedums, and they don't take up a whole lot of room either. So, they bring a lot of interest to the garden. Not only do you get the really nice foliage, but you get the benefit of added blooms. So, there's a lot of months of interest there for just one plant.
About Ask Grumpy
Ask Grumpy is a podcast featuring Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener. For more than 20 years, Grumpy has been sharing advice on what to grow, when to plant, and how to manage just about anything in your garden. Tune in for short episodes every Wednesday and Saturday as Grumpy answers reader questions, solves seasonal conundrums, and provides need-to-know advice for gardeners with his very Grumpy sense of humor. Be sure to follow Ask Grumpy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you don't miss an episode.
Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.
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