Phlox Easy Grow Easy Like

The many varieties of this plant furnish garden bloom from earliest spring through August—easy to grow and easy to like .. .

Th Phlox family is a most interesting one. Besides phlox, it includes polemonium, gilia, and cobaea. Many of us know the native polemonium with its lovely blue flowers and compound leaves which is quite common in many of the woods from New York to Minnesota to Kansas to Alabama. We sometimes call it Jacob’s Ladder, other times Greek valerian. Even more useful since it is taller growing and more showy, is one of the few European members of the phlox family… Polemonium caeruleum.

There are quite a number of gilia species up and down the Pacific Coast. Probably the most showy one that we often grow in our gardens is Gilia rubra, which is sometimes called the standing or tree cypress. It usually acts more or less as a biennial growing one year and blooming the next. It is quite showy with pink or more often bright red flowers on three to six foot spikes.

And probably very few who grow the charming cathedral bells Cobaea scandens, realize that it is a member of the phlox family which has been introduced from Mexico. If you have never grown it, it is well worth trying.

The genus Phlox itself is a fascinating one that grows from relatively high altitudes in the mountains to the low lands in the prairies and the plains. Except for one Siberian species they are all natives of America.

Probably best known of all phlox is the annual Phlox Drummondii which grows wild through the gulf states. The hybridizers have worked on these and there is a class which grows 15 to 18 inches high. It is especially nice for cut flowers as well as garden use. The cuspidata group has irregular star shaped flowers in which the petals are rather deeply cut giving a more airy effect than usual.

For those who wish to have lower growing plants there is the nana compacta group which comes in separate colors as well as in mixture.

The globe phlox has a rounded ball-like habit of growth. Although the annual phlox is native to areas where summers are hot, they do not always continue to bloom through all of the hot summers of the Midwest. They are more satisfactory where it is slightly cooler.

Perennial Phlox

The hardier perennial phlox offer a tremendous variety of forms. The moss pink Phlox subulata grows wild on hot sandy banks, usually in poor soil, from New York to Michigan to Florida. Many varieties have been selected through the years and you can find colors of white, pale blue, lavender, red, and pink. They vary considerably in the size of the flowers and the habit of growth.

There are several alpine species that grow through our western mountains. All of these will be found growing in rather poor soil… sometimes almost in gravel.

The wild sweet William, Phlox divaricata differs from most other phlox in that it usually grows in the shade. Its eight to 12 inch tall stems with lavender, pink, or white flowers make a wonderful addition to any garden. Although there are selections which are larger flowered, equally good plants can be found along many roadsides and woods. The size of the flower, the color of the flower, the shape of the petals vary tremendously. In the home garden they may thrive, in fact they may self sow to such an extent that they can almost become a pest and yet in other gardens they will be difficult to establish. Try them in a variety of locations in your own garden and see if one area is not more satisfactory than the other. Ample organic matter in the soil will greatly increase their spread and bloom.

For Summer Bloom

The taller phlox that bloom during the summer are varieties of Phlox paniculata. They come in many colors and the garden should not be allowed to be overrun with the common magenta colored variety. These colors include white, cream, light pink, dark pink, salmon, rose, bright red, lilac, magenta and even purple. There is no more showy or satisfactory flower for mid to late summer. They thrive in sun or even in some shade, and they are perfectly hardy. Their big objection is that they set seeds profusely. The seeds germinate rather easily and one may soon have a host of seedlings approaching the wild parent in color, an ugly magenta. Unfortunately these ugly seedlings soon crowd out the good varieties. These summer phlox are so easy to propagate from root cuttings that when they are dug, every little piece of root, even a half inch long, may send up new shoots.

This makes it difficult to eradicate the unwanted seedlings. The moral is “never let your phlox go to seed.” Never plant good, new, varieties in the same bed for at least a couple of years.

The garden Phlox has its problems. Spider Mites (red spider) loves it. The bug feeds on the upper surface of the upper leaves causing them to have light colored spots. Phlox can get powdery mildew disease during late summer. And then phlox just have poor growth, particulary older clumps. The best all around way to handle phlox is to cut off the stalks in the fall and destroy them to kill any bugs’ eggs. Dust or spray with an all-purpose material such as you use for your roses, once a month from mid May through the summer. This should control many of your difficulties, the spider mite, the plant bugs, the mildew and leaf diseases.

There are other varieties of phlox… the native creeping one, Phlox stolonifera which grows in the shade, Phlox amoena six to 12 inches high and Phlox pilosa 12 to 18 inches tall. The low growing kinds of phlox are valuable in the wall garden, as a ground cover in sunny areas either on level ground or banks, as the edging for flower borders, in the wild and in the rock garden. The taller forms are useful in the flower border, in rows in the garden for cutting, in front of shrubs and evergreens, in back of dwarf shrubs and evergreens. One can even naturalize the garden phlox like sweet rocket (Hesperis), coreopsis, gaillardi a, hardy sunflowers, and others, in the back corner of the garden where nature will take over.

by Vic Ries

Related Articles Of Interest:

• The Sweet Rocket – A Faithful Perennial
• Perennial Pleasures From Fall Planting
• Growing Phlox The Hardy Garden Perennial
• A Gardener’s Quick Reference Guide to 50 Garden Perennials