Thyme out

I have a steep slope created by cutting a driveway into raw land which I hope to build on someday. It's about half sun. I desperately want it to be covered in creeping thyme- the tiny flat rose-colored one. I bought a half a handful of seed (for $15!) at the nursery, and spread it before having the ground "hydro-seeded" to secure the bank. I got only grass and clover, NO thyme.

So I bought 6 tiny pots of thyme (also pricey), and put them in in May. It will take about 5 years to get a stand of it this way, so I bought seed again and am starting it in planter mix in my apartment. What are my chances of having it survive?

I figured to put it in the ground in late August. But unfortunately I have no sun in my north-facing apartment, only bright light in my bathroom half a day. And If I leave the flats outside when I am at work, they will get too dry. Should I put them outside on my days off, and monitor them? Or, are they doomed? Does one feed the tiny seedlings? I'd rather not force anything to grow rapidly,.

Any advice welcome.

Thyme is really easy to germinate and you dont feed any tiny plants till they show a few good secondery leaves, I would put them outside on bright days and if cool in the evening, bring them back indoors, you do this for about a week and it is called hardening off, once your seedlings are large enough to handle, you pot them into a small pot individualy and water sparingly till they make good roots, handle your sedlings by the leaves, not the stems as you can snap the delicate stems and cause a fungus to set into the plants,leave them outside to get used to the different temps and conditions, newly potted seedlings or very young plants dont grow for a week or two as they have been disturbed and shocked, so they need time to settle for a bit before they start to grow roots, after they are in the single pots and seem to be growing well, you could give them a very weak liquide feed, but as thyme is a European herb, they need full sun and poorish soil so dont over feed them, it would also benifit them to have a good bit of sand or fine gravel added to the soil to help good drainage as they will not like a wet shaded soil in any way, once your seedlings are mature enough to go outside into the garden where you want them to grow onto the banking/slope, you should try a couple of them in the sunny side of the slope to see how they do before waisting all the plants on the shade side as I dont really think they will survive that type of condition, they like to be baked in the sun and watered when the soil is really dry, and you must trim the plants to get them to respond to spreading the way you hope to cover your area, you can also get a creeping time which is proberbly more suited to what you want, but again these nead lots of sun, hope this helps you, good luck, WeeNel.