Thyme for a change

After a particularly long and cold Winter some of the plants in my garden are looking a bit "past it". The other day I was looking for a few sprigs of Thyme to use in a casserole when I noticed that my Thyme plants were in worse shape than I thought. One big plant that had been growing at the base of my Pear tree for the last few years had died completely, and I removed its remains only last week. Other than that, I was able to locate only three other Thyme plants. One of them is really supposed to be an ornamental plant (though we do occasionally snip the odd sprig or two from it), and it lives on the patio:

It will probably recover - it has in the past - but it will be a long time before any of its leaves are fit for the kitchen.

This one is in even worse shape, having lost almost all of its leaves:

I think that one will probably have to go.  The only half-decent Thyme plant I have is one that has been in the coldframe over the Winter (there's a moral in that tale, isn't there?):

Well, at least it is vaguely green, but it could hardly be described as "luxuriant", could it?

Definitely the time had come for a Thyme-renewal!  I was at the Garden Centre on Easter Monday, buying some compost for planting-up some more potatoes, when I noticed that they had a lot of healthy-looking herb plants in 5-inch pots. They were on special offer at four for £6, a reduction of about 20%. I bought four, though in retrospect maybe I should have bought a few more.

Since the new plants are primarily for use as culinary herbs, I chose two specimens of Common Thyme

But I also got one of Broadleaved Thyme. This is very similar in taste and smell to the Common Thyme, but it has a more creeping habit. I deliberately chose one which already had some quite long shoots.

Then purely for its ornamental appeal I chose this Golden Thyme ("Archer's Gold"). Despite appearances, it is not a lemon-scented one.

I'll pot these up into bigger containers next weekend, when hopefully the weather will be more conducive to outdoor gardening!

In the past I have grown Thyme from seed, but it takes a long time to get it to maturity, and I felt that in the present circumstances I could not wait that long. In any case, I think that £1.50 for a decent-sized healthy young plant is pretty good value, especially as I didn't have to incur any delivery charges (our local Garden Centre is less than 2 miles from our house). I always like to inspect very carefully the plants I buy, and I often spend a fair bit of time choosing the nicest specimen on display, and that is not something you can do when you buy by mail order.