PHLOX have been favorites in American gardens for well over 100 years. They are long blooming, hardy and long-lived, easy of culture, often fragrant and never need staking. They range in height from two to five feet, and produce huge billows of bloom in mid-late summer, in a range of colors from pure white to red, with nearly every shade of pink, lavender and purple in between. They grow happily in most parts of the country and, properly planted and sited, they are largely pest and disease free, and provide decades of bloom - the perfect perennial!

So rather surprising to say I did not have ANY in my gardens until several years ago and almost embarrassing to say why. I was filling my gardens at the time w/ mostly unusual perennials and as far as I was concerned PHLOX was a ho-hum 'old folks flower' lol Then a friend who runs a Nursery decided to specialize in PHLOX and I was introduced to literally hundreds of varieties in every color and shade imaginable. I now have a ridiculous number of varieties in my own gardens.

The pretty pink and white one w/ a deeper pink throat- pictured here in the evening- is one of my favorites. One of the latest bloomers at my place it is also one of the most fragrant w/ the five-petaled blossoms growing in a large bell shaped group atop stems 4+' high. They are tall enough to live at the back of several beds and definitely changed my ideas about PHLOX being a fuddy-duddy perennial.