Lemon Thyme PLants - Silver Queen

Thymus x citriodorus Silver Queen

There is a Silver Queen Lemon thyme and also a Golden Queen version so that no matter how your colour ways is directed, one will fit somewhere in your garden. You cannot miss out on the dual hit of lemon zing and aromatic thyme in one little herb. Silver Queen is one of the most elegant thymes with its silvery-grey leaf edged in cream, as if embroidered, and then in summer it is envelopped by small white flowers, like tiny snow flakes. The effect is enchanting. As with all thymes it prefers a mean, thin soil to really taste at its best, but does need to be planted in full sun which encourages the aromatic oils to come to the surface of the leaf to give it a better flavour.

A Canteen of Silver Queen

The variegated leaves of Silver Queen contrast well with the dark green of Common Thyme, and ideally you should grow them both because their flavours are so different but they do set each other off so well. The white flowers of Silver Queen are rarer than the more common purple, mauves and pinks of most herbs so it gives briightness and light accents to the various greens of any other herbs like tarragon, chives or parsley that you might also be growing in your herb patch. But remember that if grown in a good rich soil thymes, counterintuitively, lose all flavour, so plant it slightly away from other herbs that require richer conditions. Thymes make good ground cover, and if you search out some of the creeping varieties as well, with a little zealous weeding, and the odd chamomile plant, along with some Golden Queen thyme you can make a passable and very pretty lawn in an area that does not receive much pedestrian traffic. Thymes grow well in pots but use a peat, grit and bark mix that is not too high in nutrients and keep watering to a minimum. Lemon thyme can be picked all year round, but if you wanted to dry it (which you can quite successfully) choose to pick it before it flowers. Add some stems to light olive oils or white wine vinegars to also capture its essential herbiness. Use lemon thyme with fish and in salad dressings, but it is also particularly good scattered over a light, creamy goats cheese with a little rapeseed oil drizzled over it or make a herb butter and serve it with poached trout or salmon.

Features

• Height: 30 cm
• Spread: 20 cm
• Colour: variegated silver, cream and grey
• Flowers: pink
• Uses: culinary, medicinal
• Taste: lemon scented
• Harvest: all year
• Storage: can be dried
• Spacing: 20 cm
• Life: hardy perennial

The healing powers of thyme

Thyme has strong antiseptic properties, and if used as a tea can help with hangovers as well. Useful! As an oil it is often incorporated into toothpaste, mouthwash and gargles.