How Do You Make A Bushy Thyme
Welcome to this post about how to make a bushy thyme. It can be a challenge sometimes making your thyme plant grow in a more bushy way to both look beautiful but also be easier to harvest from. The thing with thyme is that it’s never really too late to make the plant bushier. It just comes down to the techniques that you apply to it. Thyme is a hardy plant that can manage a lot of trimming and cutting so you can shape and bend it however you might want it. To read more about this you can follow along below.
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If you want a complete and comprehensive guide to trimming thyme to promote growth you can read one of our articles here, How Do You Trim Thyme So It Keeps Growing.
How Do You Make A Bushy Thyme
Like I said in the beginning of the article, it’s never really too late to start making your thyme plant bushier and easier to harvest from. A bushy thyme will look a lot more beautiful and inviting in your garden. The best practice is to start trimming already the first year of you starting to grow it. But it will become easier and easier as the years go along and the plant establishes itself. As you might know with most herbs is that once you cut off a stem, most likely two new ones will grow from there. This is what we will take advantage of for making a bushier plant.
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Now, cutting the stems can be tricky because you want to cut the right ones that will make the plant bushier. I usually like to leave the ones growing straight up. It’s the ones on the sides I want to start multiplying and make that bushy appearance. The ones growing straight up will help make the overall look of it bigger so that’s why I dont cut them.
How Do You Prune Thyme To Make It Bushy
What you should also know is that you can never cut off any more than 30 % of the plant as that might risk it dying off. Although thyme is a hardy plant like we said before, it has its limits too. So restrain yourself a little bit with the trimming. Let it grow back and a bit more before you do a second trimming. This keeps the thyme always growing bigger and bigger. Before you know if you have more thyme to use then you could ever imagine.
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A few other aspects will also help the thyme in growing a bit bushier. That’s placing it so it can get a lot of sun during the day. Outside you will want it to have around 6 – 8 hours. Growing inside it should get 10 hours of sun. This amount will keep it on track with growth and help it store energy for the fall and winter.
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I want to reiterate quickly again on what we have been talking about in this article about how you make your thyme bushier. It comes down to cutting the right stems. The ones growing around on the side and letting the next two growths come out from the one you cut off. Doing this will make your thyme appear bushier but also supply more harvests throughout the year.
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Is your thyme bush starting to flower and you wonder if you should pinch them off? In this article we lay out the pros and cons. Find it here, Should I Pinch Flowers Off Thyme.
