Why You Shouldn't Plant Creeping Thyme Under Shade Trees (& Better Alternatives To Try)

If you've planted some lovely, fragrant creeping thyme under your shade trees and you're frustrated because it's just not doing well, there could be a good reason for this. While creeping thyme (Thymus praecox) makes an excellent ground cover, it won't thrive without consistent sunlight. 

To successfully grow a creeping thyme plant, it needs a minimum of six hours of sunlight daily. Like many other herbs, if the plant receives too much shade from taller trees, it won't flower well, and its growth will be leggy or spindly. This essentially defeats the purpose of growing creeping thyme as a ground cover because you won't get the nice dense mat of lush growth that you're after, and opportunistic weeds will soon fill the space instead. After all, keeping weeds at bay is what ground covers are best at and why you need them in your garden.

But don't worry; there are better alternatives you can try if you want to cover the ground under your shade trees with green foliage and pretty flowers. Some of the best alternatives to creeping thyme include Allegheny spurge (Pachysandra procumbens), wild ginger (Asarum canadense), foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia), and lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis). All of these varieties will happily grow under the shady cover of your trees.

The aforementioned Allegheny spurge, aka Mountain Pachysandra, is an attractive ground cover native to the southeastern U.S. that can form a dense mat with showy new leaves that exhibit silver to green mottling. It can be grown in USDA hardiness zones 7 through 8 and produces fragrant pink or white blooms from March to April. Wild ginger is also a native of the U.S. as well as Canada. It loves growing in the shade and has pretty heart-shaped leaves and tiny purple flowers in the spring that attract pollinators. It can be grown in USDA hardiness zones 4 through 6. Like creeping thyme, wild ginger is also deer-resistant.

Another shade-loving ground cover is foamflower. Also a native species, it spreads through underground rhizomes and will grow in USDA hardiness zones 3 through 8. The attractive lobed leaves look a lot like maple leaves, and in spring, foamflowers produce flower spikes with pink or white blooms. 

Finally, for a ground cover with unique mottled leaves, consider lungwort. It's a member of the borage family and native to Europe, but it will happily grow in USDA hardiness zones 3 through 8. Aside from the interest created by its splotchy leaves, it also produces dainty blue, pink, or purple flowers in spring. In addition to planting ground covers under your trees, you might also be interested in exploring Hydrangea and Hypericum species, which are gorgeous flowering shrubs that thrive in the shade larger trees create.