Should I Pinch Flowers Off Thyme
Welcome to this post about how I should pinch flowers off them. It can be a hard decision whether you should let your plant go to bloom or pick them off to continue growth. In this article we will discuss some of the pros and cons to both these approaches. Thyme is a very hardy herb so you should be worried about picking all the flowers off. But follow along and you just might learn about some tips and tricks you can use.
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If you want to learn more about thyme, and especially about how you should trim it then read one of our articles here, How Do You Trim Thyme So It Keeps Growing.
Should I Pinch Flowers Off Thyme
Like we said in the beginning of the article, it can be hard deciding if you should pick the flowers to make room for more growth. Like you might know, most herbs will slow down their growth and focus on blooming at one point. When you see this happening you can pick off the flowers as soon as possible ideally to mitigate this happening. Now the plant will most likely continue growing instead.
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But what are some of the benefits of letting it bloom then? Well for starters it looks really beautiful and smells very nice too. But can you actually use the flower for anything? Of course you can. In my opinion the best use for them is to make tea with the flowers. Boil water and let some thyme flowers steep in it. This will create an aromatic beverage that will let you enjoy the hard work you put down to have a fantastic thyme plant. If you don’t want to make tea with it then you can also sprinkle them over a salad to also get a nice aromatic touch.
What Do You Do With Flowered Thyme
What makes them go to flower then? Usually it’s because the plant thinks it has grown enough and wants to use some of the energy it has collected throughout the summer. In hopes of being inoculated when blooming to be able to create thyme seeds that might spread somewhere else and start growing. Thyme can really start blooming between May already all the way to September.
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It will sort of depend on how much sun it has gotten during the summer. But if you see it flowering a lot, then don’t take that the wrong way. That is most likely because it grows in a very good place and environment and you can pat yourself on the back a bit.
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So I want to reiterate again a bit on what we have been talking about today. Picking the thyme flowers will make it grow out more stems or sprigs. But you lose the opportunity of using the wonderfully aromatic flowers for making either tea or over a salad. So if you want to maximize the growth of your thyme plant then I would suggest picking the flowers as soon as you see them.
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If you are having troubles getting your thyme plant to be very bushy then we have written an article dedicated to this problem. You can find it here, How Do You Make A Bushy Thyme.
