It’s About Thyme

My thyme lawn that is! In an effort to be a good steward to the earth we planted a low water garden in our front yard. Since regular lawn tends to be water hog, and Boise is in the high desert, I decided that I wanted to do a dark green thyme “lawn”. A few years ago Luke and I took the time to plant 100+ tiny Reiter Creeping Thyme plants from High Country Gardens. It has taken a few years and many many many hours of weeding before it grew in, but now it looks like this,

Getting ready to burst into tiny purple spring flowers- gotta support the local bees!
It’s not as smooth as grass, but it is really cushy, smells wonderful, is virtually pest free, doesn’t have to be mowed and only needs minimal watering in the hot summer heat.
The first few springs Luke and I would spend hours and hours pulling weeds from between our growing plants, but it has finally grown in enough to choke out most of the weeds, dandelions especially. I was able to get almost all the weeds this year in about 2 hours, and that’s because I pull them all by hand. It’s the only way to make sure they never come back and it keeps my garden organic. Porter joined me outside, under an umbrella, on a lovely Spring day. He was the supervisor, cracking the whip, while I was on my hands and knees yanking those suckers out of the ground. I had 2 piles that looked like this,
If I was really good, I would have picked the dandelions before they bloomed and then washed the leaves and eaten them, but I’m just not there yet.
My supervisor, propped up on the Boppy.
Thanks Arleen @ Napili Point for knitting this awesome baby beanie.
What a life!