Pacific Northwest Gardening: Groundcover in patio, 0 by kosk0025

kosk0025 wrote:
Here is a pic of my patio interplanted with woolly thyme. I guess it is kind of a gray look, but the reddish stems show a bit more in winter. I took this pic this morning. So the green is coming back. There is a small chance that it may be covered in pink flowers in a month. (Which will be gorgeous to look at, but could be a bit treacherous to walk on with the bees.) As of this summer, the thyme will be two years old. It filled in nicely. Here is what we (and the landscapers who helped) did:

We ran drip tubing in parallel between all of the pavers, embedded under the sand. I would say that is the number one secret to success when interplanting a patio---it does need water. The parallel provides enough water to seep into the perpendicular spaces and water the whole thing. Believe it or not, the thyme is planted directly into SAND only, under which there is a gravel layer. No soil. I ran the drip water almost every day last july and August to get it established. 3 and 1/2 inch plants were cut in half with scissors and spaced every 6 inches. Woolly thyme was chosen because it is widely available, cheap, and the patio is huge.