Miniature Herbs
(Page 3 of 5)
April/May 1993
By Andy Van Hevelingen
Having no formal training in the art of bonsai, I’ve been doing what I jokingly term “faux-bonsai”: I place a specimen herb in a terra-cotta dish, add a few jagged rocks, and underplant with Minus thyme (Thymus praecox subsp. arcticus ‘Minus’). Presto! an instant miniature garden with the effect of bonsai, but with little pruning and no fuss. Spurred by the success of my first humble efforts, I went on to experiment with different specimen plants and plant combinations. Cat thyme (Teucrium marum), a tiny silver-leaved germander with pink flowers, contrasts pleasingly with the green matlike Bressingham thyme (Thymus ‘Bressingham’), which fills in quickly and complements the cat thyme flowers with its own bright pink blossoms. However, the former does attract cats with its pungent fragrance and is no match for an overzealous cat. Teucrium subspinosum, a diminutive, compact shrublet 5 to 6 inches high, is another miniature and cat attractant whose name gives you some idea of its prickly nature. It sits in the garden like an evergreen sea urchin and is topped with minute pink flowers in summer. Unfortunately, those little spines do little to deter the cats.
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Tuffet thyme (Thymus caespititius ‘Tuffet’) first forms a tight, bright green mound that is graced in summer with a crown of reddish pink flowers. After the flowers fade, leaving temporary holes, the plant begins to radiate outward as a mat of light green, needlelike foliage. The original mound eventually fills in but will not flower again; a new mound forms a short distance away. The whole process then begins again, but now the plant covers a much larger area.
I can easily imagine Little Miss Muffet eating her curds and whey on one of these tuffets. When she gets sleepy, she can lay her head on a dark green pillow of elfin thyme (Thymus ‘Elfin’), an extremely slow grower which needs excellent drainage and rarely reaches 4 inches in either height or breadth. If the sun gets too hot, Miss Muffet can move into the shade of a nearby Greek miniature basil (a variety of Ocimum basilicum), whose usual globe shape is reminiscent of an air balloon, ready to take Miss Muffet on a delightful, fragrant ride.
Imagination can run rampant in planning miniature herb displays. A friend of mine with a wonderful sense of humor has planted a concrete head with moss thyme (Thymus praecox subsp. arcticus ‘Albus’) so that it resembles hair. This implies, he says, that the gardener is “ahead of his thyme.” Another grower friend planted her herbal miniatures in the shape of her nursery’s logo, a barn owl. The outline is an 8-inch hedge of closely spaced dwarf santolina (Santolina chamaecyparissus ‘Nana’) filled in with a fast-growing creeping thyme (Thymus ‘Doone Valley’). Two plants of Dianthus simulans form two big round eyes. All of these plants are evergreen (the santolina is evergray) and can be enjoyed all year to Zone 5. An occasional trimming keeps the thyme within the outline and shapes the santolina hedge while preventing it from blooming. (The flowers would disrupt the color scheme.) The dianthus needs only deadheading; the plant remains a tight mound of clustered blue-green needlelike foliage.
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