It's About Thyme

It's getting much colder here in Virginia, which means we've cleaned up much of our late summer plantings and put the containers in storage for safe keeping over the winter. It also means we have more time to look after our more hardy, cool weather perennial plantings that will hang on with us through the winter months. This week we began prepping our thyme plantings for healthy autumn maintenance.

You might remember back in September we planted a thyme cutting we'd successfully rooted in a small planter in hopes it would take off and grow into a new perennial:

As you can see, the cutting really took to the planter over the last several weeks, continuing to grow and thrive:

We'd previously just had one main thyme plant we'd planted around the same time we transplanted rosemary and sage from from our old house back in the spring of 2012. While it's continued to hang in there over the last year, it's getting a little thinned out and looking a little lonely in its planter:

We love to cook with fresh herbs and cutting sprigs of thyme is one of our favorites over the autumn and winter, so this little plant just wasn't going to cut it as the main supply over another winter.

 

Luckily, the thyme cutting we'd planted was doing so well, we decided to just transplant it in with the older thyme plant in hopes the two can coexist and thrive together for the foreseeable future.

Transplanting was a matter of gently removing the younger thyme from its starter container and nestling it deep into the soil of the larger bucket far enough away from the other plant to allow for new root growth:

We were excited to see just how long the roots had grown over the last several weeks on the younger cutting before replanting it. Here's how we shaped up:

We gave the plants a healthy watering and pruned down all the dried up sprigs on the older plant to encourage healthier growth. It's now hanging out with our rosemary and sage (if we only had parsley we could sing Simon and Garfunkel) as an outdoor centerpiece, soaking up the sun:

We're looking forward to seeing how our thyme fairs over the next several weeks and are mostly looking forward to having twice the supply to snip from when cooking those warm savory meals.

Have you been prepping your garden for the cooler weather or have had success with regrowing new plants from cuttings? Maybe you have a favorite hardy herb you work into your cooking over the cooler months? We'd love to know in the comments section below.

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Honey Thyme Cocktail Recipe | How To Root Cuttings | All Gardening Projects