HOW TO GROW PHLOX
“Create a magical carpet of colour” says Anne
Weeding through an overgrown border of improved clay soil back in the spring, i came across the remains of a perennial phlox or two.
Along with ground cover roses, Shasta daisies and day lilies, they’d held their own against a thick mob of grasses, ground elder, nettle and brambles.
good for them i thought, before disentangling my plants and setting them into good, moist soil where they can prosper.
Phlox are a pretty and useful group of plants, mainly from north America, with alpine and creeping types for spring and early summer, shade-loving P. divaricata often known as the wild sweet William and pretty annuals to use as bedding. And there are tall cottage garden perennials flowering from summer to autumn. Their five petalled flowers have a fluttering, satiny elegance, and are usually fragrant, especially in the evening. They attract plenty of insects. i often stop the car to admire magic carpets of pink and mauve in spring, created by the creeping phlox. This common name rightly belongs to
P. stolonifera but is also widely applied to the moss phlox, P. subulata whose perennial mounds of evergreen foliage make cushions only 6in (15cm) high.
don’t overlook this floriferous plant when searching for ground cover to fill difficult narrow, open plan borders, banks and rock gardens.
Set plants 12in (30cm) apart in good but well-drained soil in full sun for the best results, as plants can look worse for wear if they suffer waterlogging in winter or drought in summer.
Low-growing phloxes such as varieties of P. douglasii are usually to be found in the alpine sections of garden centres and will grow well in containers. There must be plenty of crocks (broken clay pot shards and shingle) in the base and a good but gritty, well-draining compost.