Versatile and beautiful, thymes should have a place in every herb garden. All thymes are perennial herbs with very small leaves and tiny flowers ranging in color from white through pink to deep rose-magenta. The creeping types will cover bricks and stones or low walls and can tolerate a certain amount of foot traffic. The bush forms are 6 to 8 inches high and have woody, wiry stems and branches.Common thyme (T. vulgaris) is the type of thyme most frequently used for cooking. Thymes need full sun and a dry, gritty soil. Buy named cultivars as plants, or plant thyme seed outdoors in a prepared bed in fall or spring, or start your seeds in flats indoors.