Hi Heather! Unfortunately I am out of Thymus praecox 'Elfin' seeds, but I can tell you that it is very easy to grow from seed. Its actually easier to just grow from seed than to try and divide them. This variety grows much more slowly, and is much lower than the other thymes. But I'm thinking if your mom cannot get grass to grow in a high traffic area, thyme will most definitely not grow. They will take a lot of hot and dry, but not a lot of foot traffic. I would suggest a nice bark mulch, or stones set on pea gravel for mulch, something like that. It sounds like an impossible spot! If you still want to try thyme anyway, I can offer seed of some tougher varieties; I have seed of 'Purple Carpet' and Woolly thyme. Email me your mailing address and I will send them to you.

I know this message goes back a bit, but if your still wondering......I put in a search for Creeping Thyme seeds on Yahoo and a few companies popped up. None that i know personally. Good luck, that's sounds like a nice idea.

Any kind of creeping thyme is ideal for a hot, sunny location and sandy soils are preferred over heavy soils. Just water enough to get it well established, then it should be fine on its own.

Yes, it will spread and creep onto pavement. How far it will go and whether you will need to trim often is pretty variable, but I've seen it cover quite a lot of pavement from the original planting site.