A thyme lawn saves time, energy and water

ORGANIC GARDENING has evolved from growing healthy vegetables to amore pervasive ethos of tuning in to nature's rhythms. For dedicatedflower gardener Christina Frutiger, this means offering her clients analternative to imported bouquets steeped in chemicals.

"The flower industry is a pretty toxic one," says Frutiger, whoproduces masses of flowers from a gargantuan organic border on her GigHarbor acreage. From May through October, she fashions bouquets freshfrom her garden for clients, friends and businesses like restaurantsand dental offices around Gig Harbor. She delivers her seasonal mixedarrangements ("no daffodils in October!") in her own vases, then goesback the next week to retrieve the old flowers and replace them withjust-picked ones.

For Frutiger, organics don't stop at the edge of her 12-foot-wide,75-foot-long flower border. The sunny lawn around the house used to bea play area for her two little boys. "They grew up, and I was left witha huge, water-guzzling lawn," says Frutiger. A couple of years ago, sheripped out all the grass and replaced it with a creeping 'Elfin' thymelawn. It blooms for four to five weeks in midsummer, doesn't needmowing, edging or fertilizing, and requires very little, if any,irrigation. "You can walk on it, and even run a wheelbarrow over it,"she enthuses. Best of all, the thyme stays green all year, shading intobronze tones when the weather cools in autumn. Bumblebees love it,which could be considered a drawback, but Frutiger loves the weeks thelawn is in flower and pulsating with the happy buzz of furry bees.

Tired of pouring time and resources into turf grass? Autumn is thetime to install a thyme lawn. That's because it takes hold best duringthe rainy season. "When I filled in a bit in spring, the plants didn'testablish as well," says Frutiger. Thyme prefers poor, sandy soil, anda sunny location. "You have to weed until it all grows in, which iskind of a pain, but it gets better every year," she says. She planted4-inch starts a foot apart, and it took three years for the lawn toknit together. In the meantime, she weeded by hand. Now, the only carethe thyme requires is scything back the spent flowers after bloom andwatering a couple of times during a droughty summer.

As pretty as the lavender-blooming lawn is, the main show is thespectacular flower border that rings it. Frutiger cuts every flower inall her bouquets from her own garden, from mid-spring until the gardenshuts down in November. She's incorporated native plants into theborder to attract and shelter creatures, as well as to cut. Herspringtime bouquets include the fresh, lime-colored leaves of salal andthe gauzy foliage from native huckleberries. Feverfew seeds itselfthrough the border; Frutiger uses its touch of white to spark the othercolors.

Her arrangements are an abundant, country-casual mix of lilies,roses, chocolate cosmos, dahlias, zinnias, rudbeckia, campanula, salviaand snapdragons. "I spend lots of time on each," she says of theseeming artlessness of her artful constructions.

Shrubs play their part in filling out the border and the bouquets.In spring, she uses flowering branches from spireas. Later in theseason, she counts on the plentiful soft-pink flowers of Lavatera'Barnsley' to plump up the bouquets, along with the supremely fragrantrugosa rose 'Hansa.' Toward autumn, Frutiger relies on hydrangeas,berried shrubs and native greens. Throughout the season, foliage fromrhododendrons and silvery lamb's ears round out the bouquets.

Frutiger's care of her personal Garden of Eden is vigilant yetrelaxed. "It's OK to have a couple of weeds out there!" she says. Evenwithout the Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary sign, the hum, flash andflitter of birds, bees, butterflies and dragonflies tell the story of asafe, welcoming garden. "I'm a breast-cancer survivor," says Frutigerof her dedication to chemical-free gardening. "I never use anythingtoxic inside or out."

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and author of "A Pattern Garden." Check out her blog at www.valeaston.com.