Continuing My Efforts

Since April 24th is normally the last day of the season where we might possible have a late freeze, I decided this is the weekend to continue my idea of having a thyme lawn. 

So far, the first plant, a wooly thyme, seems to be hanging in there.  Always a good thing with my iffy green thumb.

On Friday I went by a couple of locally owned nurseries to check out their supplies of thyme.  At the first one I went to, no luck.  I couldn't find any thyme in their herb section.  I asked one young man who worked there.  He did not know and said he would find out.  Thirty seconds later, he had obviously not asked and was back to what he'd been doing before I asked - straightening up the tomato plant display.  I then located another employee and asked her.  She informed me they had just planted the seeds for their thyme plants and I should come back in a week or so.  Umm, no thanks.

I went to another nursery right down the street.  They had some larger time plants, but the tag said they would grow slightly higher than I wanted them to.  Their smaller plants were the same variety as the larger plants, except for one tiny pot containg an Elfin variety that looked rather sad.  No thanks, again.

I finally went to the nursery I had gone to a couple of weeks ago.  They had a MUCH better variety including 2 types that only get about 2-3 inches tall.  I got 2 pots of each variety and came home.  I need to think about exactly where I want to put them and then it's transplant time.

It should not be such a hassle to find a common herb like thyme.

On the other hand, it's kinda fun to walk up to a complete stranger (at a nursery) and ask them, "Do you have thyme?"  It has such a nice existential/metaphysical feel to it.

Papillon

Ah, Yes...

Well, another bit of the great 2011 water leak has come up.  I got my monthly water bill.  It looks like the leak most likely started in late March because there was a slight up-tick in usage.  It wasn't enough of a change to make me really sit up and take notice.  I'm sure when I got March's bill, I just put it down to my taking longer showers or something similar.

However, April's bill is when the monthly usage really goes off the charts.  I'll bet the leak was fairly active for a while before it finally got around to leaking through into the house.  Ah, well. 

I can't be too unhappy because the leak kicked me out of my rut of hoping there wouldn't be any more leaks and got me started in the right direction of fixing the problem and stopping the opportunities for future leaks.  Giving me much needed peace of mind.

Onto related thoughts - here in New Mexico, rock lawns are very popular due to the lack of moisture.  (After all, Albuquerque is located in a high desert area - low rain and high altitude.)  For those who are not familiar with rock lawns, instead of grass lawns we have front and back yards where black plastic is laid over the bare soil and then several tons of pea-sized gravel are poured on top and smoothed down into a thin, uniform layer. 

I have never been fond of rock lawns, although it has meant I didn't have to mow the lawn.  Several years ago I heard of an idea for a thyme lawn.  So I've decided to start one of my own.  Where the plumbers had to dig the trench to lay the new main water line from the meter to the house, they had to remove the plastic from that area.  I've decided to start my new thyme lawn along that trench and then expand it slowly across the rest of the yard.  It should ultimately be pleasing to the eye and also pleasant to smell.  And I'll never have to mow it!

So far I've just got one plant put in - a small woolly thyme.  It's listed as a ground cover and is a nice green grey.  I'm not sure if I'll use more than one type of thyme or just bung in several varieties.  I'll have to think on that a bit.  Now that warm weather's here, I do need to remember to water it regularly.  If I recall correctly, it should help the effort by spreading out a bit on its own.

Papillon