1,000 Creeping Thyme Seeds for Planting - Heirloom Non-GMO Ground Cover Seeds - AKA Breckland Thyme, Mother of Thyme, Wild Thyme, Thymus Serpyllum - Purple Flowers

These have not grown and spread yet. I have terrible soil quality. Quite possibly the worst on the planet. It’s muddy, rocky, sandy, clay when wet and concrete when dry. A pick ax would work better than a shovel. However, the germination rate was very high and they are still alive even uafter transplanting outside weeks ago into the soil from the pits of the firey hot place. I used two different methods to germinate them. The majority were seeded in an indoor plant tray with a plastic lid that I actually left outside in a part sun, part shade location. I made sure the peat pods remained moist. The other method I used was to put a few seeds into my indoor hydroponic garden under a full spectrum plant light. These seeds germinated faster and grew much faster. They are doing much better than the other plants. Sadly, the little countertop hydroponic garden only grows 6 plants at a time. Anyway, it remains to be seen if these will grown and spread though I’m certain they definitely would for someone with decent soil.

Don't waste your money, these don't seed! Not worth the money, just go to somewhere in person and grab them.

A lot of negative reviews are based on failed germination. I don’t think most people realize how tricky thyme can be to start from seed. The seeds are very, very small (so yes, 1,000 seeds will come in a very small packet). Generally speaking, seeds should be planted as deeply as the seed height. So in this case, just barely covered. Then they need to be kept moist but not overly soaked until they’ve become established plants. When it takes up to 3 weeks for germination, it can be easy to forget to water your dirt patch every single morning (and possibly twice daily, depending on your climate). It only takes a day or two of neglect to kill the fragile seeds once they’ve woken from dormancy. This is why I “sprout” my seeds before planting them. It’s the first time I tried sprouting thyme and I wasn’t sure if it would work, so I tested it with maybe 100 or so seeds and it worked beautifully! On Saturday I soaked some seeds overnight. Then first thing Sunday morning I started rinsing them twice daily just like you would if you were growing sprouts for food. (If you don’t know about sprouting food, I highly recommend googling it! It is such an easy way to always have fresh, nutrient dense lettuce type food to add to sandwiches, salads, pizza, baked potatoes, literally anything!) These seeds need a tighter mesh screen than most so be careful you don’t lose them down the sink drain! I used a stainless sifter that bakers use for powdered sugar and fine flours. In the past I have used nylon netting/screen for “no-seeums” - just cut a piece big enough to cover the mouth of a jar, secure it and you’re good to go! It only took a couple of days for the seeds to crack open and for the tap root to start poking out. It’s important to sow them as soon as they’ve opened. The more time they spend indoors as seedlings, the more vulnerable they’ll be to temperature changes after planting and I do not have the time or patience to harden off seedlings! So as soon as they cracked open, I scattered them outside on some fresh soil and watered deeply. Today is Thursday and I already see little tiny green seedlings all over the dirt patch! And now I am very confident that with proper care, I will have a yard covered in creeping thyme for the price of this little seed packet and some extra care on the front end - which is amazing considering the thousands it would cost me if I tried to do this by buying flats of plants. So please, take some advice from the 5 star reviewers here. These seeds are totally viable! They just require a bit of TLC.I’ll post updates with pics as the plants mature.

For the price I thought these would be the kind of seeds that could be cast sewn like grass seed, not the kind you have to start in little seedling pots like you’d do with tomatoes. When using a plant as a lawn replacement ground cover, wouldn’t it make more sense to sell the seeds the same way you can buy grass seed (e.g., with germination medium mixed in so you could use a lawn seeding device to plant it)?

Two weeks out and 32 out of 40 are sprouting. Super happy!

They sprouted and grew a few millimeters but that was it. I planted them in multiple locations. A lot of them I started in little seed starting containers with seed starting soil. With the rest of the seeds I tried planting them in multiple locations such as ground, flower beds, and potted plants. None of them grew past a few millimeters. Maybe I did something wrong but I do plant a lot of other plants and herbs so I'm not sure what my user error could have been.

*Second and final update. I am so pleased with how these are growing! They are turning into cute little dense tufts of green! What an exceptional value since ground cover can be so expensive! We're in zone 7b and have had a hard time getting any ground cover to take! This is a huge win! So pleased with this purchase!*Update. Just planted over 300 seedlings outside. I'll try to remember to update again in a few weeks. But clearly I've had much success and only used maybe half of the bag of seeds. :) I plan on growing more to plant in the fall.The seeds germinated well and after a couple months, they are maturing and starting to "creep". I've been hardening them the past couple weeks to ready the plants for outside planting within the next week or two.I decided to use those little soil pods, as well as dirt in natural and plastic trays. The plants have done the best in these pods, not entirely sure why, but a helpful experiment nonetheless. I have hundreds of them growing right now and decided to use plastic tote bottoms and lids as trays since there are so many. The pods in the deep clear part of the tote has done better than those on the lids. Again, not sure why- but thought I'd share.I'm cautiously optimistic that a couple months of caring for these seedlings and will prove worthwhile and they'll become excellent ground cover. Fingers crossed! Don't hesitate to buy these seeds. I've had enough luck that I went ahead and bought another pack to try directly sowing outdoors. We'll see how that goes. Happy growing!

tiny seeds and difficult to grow