The tiny flowers will attract bees to your garden. Thyme is excellent in ritual baths and fumigation for early spring festivals when we seek to leave the old behind and begin anew. Its addition to your garden will attract them and it can be used in spells to communicate with faeries. Place thyme beneath your pillow for a restful sleep and happy dreams and to prevent nightmares.įaeries love thyme. Add marjoram to the mix to help draw joy back in while you’re at it. When working hard to achieve a goal that seems un-achievable, thyme can be used in spells to help you keep a positive attitude.įumigate your home or make a floor wash with thyme to dispel melancholy, hopelessness and other mellow but negative vibrations, especially after a family tragedy or during a long sickness. Thyme can be used in magick spells to increase strength and courage. Thyme is also associated with Freya, Aphrodite, and Ares. Thyme is feminine in nature and associated with the element of water and the planet Venus. It should be dried like any other herb on the stem and the leaves stripped off later.
The best flavor is right before flowering. Give the plant a year to get established before doing any heavy harvesting. Leaves can be harvested as needed throughout the year. Thyme attracts bees and faeries and makes a good ground cover in sunny areas. You can also grow thyme amongst cabbages to protect them from cabbage worms, flies, beetles and aphids. Thyme and lavender grow well together, perhaps mainly because they enjoy the same conditions. With the exception of Common Thyme, which is light germinated, so seeds should be scattered on the surface, the seeds are small and slow to germinate, and many varieties are sterile cultivars, so it is best to propagate by division or cuttings or buy a plant at your local nursery. Thyme does best if it is pruned in the spring or summer after its first year. Thyme is winter hardy, but a light mulch will protect it when the ground freezes. The roots should never be allowed to stay wet.
Thyme flower full#
It prefers full sun to part shade and loose, fast-draining soil, preferably sandy. It was placed in coffins throughout Europe to ensure passage into the next world. It was used as an embalming herb in ancient Egypt and was burned in other places as offerings to celebrate Rites of Passing. It does indeed have impressive antiseptic qualities. Thyme was used as early as 3000 BCE by Sumerians as an antiseptic. In Scotland, highlanders brewed tea to increase courage and keep away nightmares. In Medieval England, ladies embroidered sprigs of thyme into their knights’ scarves to increase their bravery. It enjoyed a long association with bravery. Their soldiers added it to their bathwater to increase bravery, strength, and vigor.
Thyme is a Mediterranean native spread throughout Europe by the Romans.
The phrase “to smell of thyme” meant that one was stylish, well-groomed, poised, and otherwise attractive. Women wore thyme in their hair to enhance their attractiveness. It was mixed in drinks to enhance intoxicating effects and induce bravery and warriors were massaged with thyme oil to ensure their courage. This indicates that it may have been burned in sacred rites. The word Thyme comes from the Greek meaning to “fumigate”. There are many tiny oval-shaped leaves on each slender, woody stem. Leaves are generally dark, gray-green in color and the labiate flowers are tiny and generally pink. It is generally a low growing perennial, winter hardy to zone five.