garden babble

[ladyotterfae]

Last night I sat down with mom and we finished working out a sketch for the roughly 4'x 54' bed along the south wall of Sunnyside. (Mom was boggled by the length...she seemed to think it was only 40' or so. *snort

Comments

[bleuberi21]

Thyme is mosquito repellant?

[ladyotterfae]

a lot of herbs are, to varying degrees (rosemary is in a lot of the bug repellent mixes, as are some geraniums, and many citrus-scented things), but it happens that this particular variety of thyme is heavy on the stuff that makes citronella citronella, so you can rub some on your skin or just walk through it (groundcover thyme does pretty well with being stepped on, within reason), and release the chemicals that a lot of bugs avoid. I figured it was worth a shot, since I'll be standing out there to harvest eventually. You can also cook with it. ;) mmm...citrus thyme.
I can get you the exact scientific name, if you like.

[bleuberi21]

Yes, please! I may plant some just for that purpose.

[ladyotterfae]

Thymus citriodora (or citriodorus) is the basic latin name. You'll find some cultivars based off of that.
Here's the place I ordered it from, so you can see their description, but you can probably find it locally. It's variably known as mosquito-repellant thyme, lemon thyme (there's more than one lemon thyme), lime thyme...nobody can quite agree what it smells like, I suppose. :) At any rate, this version is a low spreading ground-cover, not all of them will be.
http://hartmannsplantcompany.com/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=HE-R-0100-0025&Category_Code=SP-R&Store_Code=HPC

Here's a short list of other recommended repellent plants I found while doing a search on the latin name:
http://www.helium.com/items/315744-mosquito-repellant-plants-for-your-garden

[bleuberi21]

Very cool, thank you so much!