Last updated on September 23rd, 2022 at 03:10 pm
Gardening thyme is pretty simple. As long as you can provide its essential needs, you’ll be sure of it having a bountiful yield.
So, among thyme’s essential needs, one particularly stands out. And that is water. As it’s a critical part of every plant’s life, it should bother you to know how much water your thyme needs.
Once your thyme’s mature, you’ll have to water it only once every 10 to 15 days. But if it’s still young, watering it once or twice each week is alright.
How Often Should I Water The Thyme Plant?
Watering is very much essential and a basic survival requirement of all plants.
Therefore, good knowledge of how to water thyme will help you to significantly improve the health of your plants and their yield.
In trying to figure out how often you are to water your Thyme plant, you should consider the climatic condition of your environment and the size of your plant.
In most climates, you can water thyme once every two weeks.
Thyme, a native of the Western Mediterranean region, prefers full sun and dry climatic conditions. Therefore, you’ll need to monitor your thyme to avoid it getting dehydrated regularly.
Most people prefer to water one or two times weekly. However, this style of watering is only advisable when growing thyme from seed.
This is because you will have to ensure that the soil around your plant’s base doesn’t get too dried.
When Should I Water Thyme Plant?
It would be best to water thyme in the early hours of the morning. Then, if your water is at a cooler temperature, water will reach your plant’s root conveniently.
Watering in the morning hours is also a good practice. The reason is that evaporation is less likely. Therefore, you should water anytime starting from 6 am to 10 am.
Furthermore, this watering schedule gradually warms and dries your herb’s leaves. This occurrence prevents blight caused by excess water.
How Often Do You Water Thyme Indoors?
The level of care you give to your outdoor plants is not the same as those cultivated indoors.
However, plants grown indoors have a higher chance of success because you can pay more attention to them. You will need a container or pot to grow your thyme indoors.
Also, it would be best to use soil-based compost that is not waterlogging to fill your container and ensure the container or pot in question has a sound drainage system.
When grown as an indoor plant, you can plant thyme at any time, either from seedlings, from potted nursery starts, or from divisions of existing plants. But it is grown predominantly from seed indoors.
Growing thyme from seed is a rather stressful task because of its requirements. That is why most gardeners prefer buying the already planted thyme (potted nursery start).
When growing thyme indoors, you will have to consider many things ranging from the soil type, temperature, light, and water, amongst others.
Although thyme typically does not need too much water because of its dry nature, you have to consider that you are now growing it indoors.
Ensure to plant your thyme in a pot with good drainage to keep the roots from soaking in moisture. Indoor plants should be grown in the sunniest location you can find or under bright glow lights.
Thyme planted in the garden will last the summer well, but potted ones grown indoors will need watering every day, and sometimes twice a day, when the weather is scorching.
Thyme is best planted in a pot or container indoors by itself or better still by mixing it with other herbs like rosemary that has the exact moisture requirement.
Growing them together will also make the soil rich for it to thrive properly.
Although thyme is pretty drought tolerant when established, they need watering until well established. Therefore, you should consider applying mulch to the plant’s base.
Also, ensure there is provision for the water to be evenly distributed in the soil.
To do this, you can use horticultural sand, grit, or gravel and ensure the layer is thin. It should be about one-sixth of an inch with a radius of four inches around the plant’s base.
Water thoroughly each time but allow the pot to dry before watering again. When it gets dry, poke your finger about half an inch into the soil and give it enough water to sustain it.
Can You Over Water Thyme?
It’s pretty easy to overwater thyme. When you give your thyme much more than required, you’re overwatering it. No matter which herb you plant, it is essential to avoid overwatering it.
Once established, thyme is drought-resistant and often prefers to be under-watered rather than over-watered. Therefore, you must wait until the soil dries before watering your thyme plant.
Remember that thyme will flower, but unlike other herbs, this is not a sign of overwatering or bolting; it will continue to thrive beyond blooming as long as you trim it.
Try to pay close attention to the coloration of the leaves on your Thyme plant. Yellow leaves can be a sign of too much water, and so can black leaves.
If you spot any blight or fuzz on the herbs, when it stops growing, when it doesn’t perk up when watered, or when the stem and root become weak, you can conclude that too much moisture is the problem.
Always have it in mind that watering too little is more straightforward to fix than overwatering. You will need to make adjustments, of course, depending on local rainfall and other influencing factors.
One big mistake would be to overwater your thyme herb because it is convenient for you. A healthy herb garden requires a commitment of both your time and attention to grow well.
It would be best to cease watering your thyme plant in Autumn, preferably a week or two before the first rain.
When the rain begins, you are sure of your thyme plant getting drenched, so it is better to keep it dry before that time comes.
Also, too much water can cause the thyme plant to droop or wilt. Overwatering can be as destructive to thyme as a lack of nutrients would as thyme plants can die if they receive more water than they can handle.
Conclusion
Thyme is considered one of the easiest plants to grow because it is used mostly in outdoor gardens for landscaping in hot, dry locations where other plants have trouble thriving because of the lack of water.
Many herbs are hardy and can tolerate moderately dry soil. However, you will want to keep an eye out for wilting when the ground is wet.
Ideally, your thyme plant should make quick use of the water you give it. Nonetheless, saturated soil is not best for thyme.
A good thyme watering strategy involves observation. You need to spend time with your plants each day to monitor how water affects them. Make notes if necessary.