Thymus Sparkling Bright - Thyme

Thymus Sparkling Bright is a new variety of thyme that stands out for its particularly bright variegated foliage and its miniature bushy and silvery appearance. In the garden or in pots, it forms a small dense tuft, pleasantly fragrant when crushed, which will keep its tiny green-grey leaves edged with white throughout the year. In spring or summer depending on the climate, its vegetation is covered with tiny pale pink flowers that are both honey-bearing and nectar-bearing. This thyme is both a preferred plant for arid areas of the garden, which are difficult to vegetate, and a lovely novelty for the herb garden.

All Thymes belong to the Lamiaceae family, they are related to savory, rosemary, and oregano. The 'Sparkling Bright' cultivar was recently selected in England for its strongly variegated white foliage, which is particularly light, but does not burn in the sun. This thyme develops slowly into a small rounded bush, with an upright and bushy habit. It will reach an average size of 15-20 cm (6-8in) in all directions. Its branches bear tiny evergreen oval leaves, leathery, which release a delicate camphor and lemon fragrance when crushed. They are widely edged with cream-white on a green-grey background. In June-July, sometimes as early as the end of May in warm regions, pretty inflorescences composed of tiny lilac-pink flowers appear at the top of the stems. This flowering, like that of all plants in the Lamiaceae family, attracts many pollinating insects. Resistant to summer drought, this Sparkling Bright thyme is also a plant that tolerates cold very well when planted in soil that does not retain water.

Thymus Sparkling Silver is above all a beautiful sun-loving and poor soil plant, valuable for very dry gardens in summer, and appreciated as a culinary plant in the vegetable garden. It finds its place in rock gardens, gravel beds, or even along pathways. It can be associated with other Thymus, marjoram (Origanum majorana), oreganos, lavender, savory, rosemary, teucrium, cistus and other santolines to evoke the scrubland in an arid area of the garden. One of the charms of this type of landscaping lies in the scents that these plants emit after a hot day: they blend together in a complex fragrance to be savoured with closed eyes: intense, captivating, it constitutes the quintessence of the Mediterranean countryside.

Note: Please be aware that our young plug plants are professional products reserved for experienced gardeners: upon receipt, transplant them as soon as possible, in pots, containers, or directly in beds.