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Plant of the Week
Garden Phlox
Latin: Phlox paniculata
Perennials are definitely in with gardeners.
Perennials are seen as good garden investments because they yield dividends over
the years to come, not just the current season as we see with annuals. One of
the first native American perennials to gain super star status in the garden was
the garden phlox.
The garden phlox is a native plant found in open woodlands from upstate New York
across to Michigan and down to Arkansas and Tennessee.
Garden phlox is a 3- to 4-foot tall perennial that will form clumps 2 or more
feet across. In early to mid-summer the ends of each stem are covered with a
mass of tubular five-petaled blooms in a large panicle. Individual blooms are
about an inch across and come in shades of lavender, pink, carmine, red, white
and bi-colors.
It was not until the 1740s that John Bartram, America’s foremost colonial-era
plantsman, introduced it to his English counterpart -- Peter Collinson. Once in
England the plant became popular in estate gardens, but it was not until the
1850s that the garden phlox began to become popular with the English middle
class. This happened as the industrial revolution saw more leisure time develop
for the working middle class. To occupy this time, gardening became more popular
than ever.
European selections of our native garden phlox began being offered in Boston in
1837 when the seedsman Joseph Breck began selling plants. This is but one of a
long list of native American plants that were first championed in a foreign land
and then introduced back to our gardens as "new" plants.
The plant remained popular until the 1930s when changing fashions in garden
design and the hype created by the introduction of hybrid annuals by companies
such as Burpee moved perennials to a second class stature. After a fleeting
revival in interest during the 1950s, garden phlox remained in the background
until the revival in interest in perennials that occurred in the 1990s.
There are about 50 selections and hybrids of the garden phlox in the trade --
some of these are good tough plants and some are dogs. Here at the University of
Arkansas, we are gearing up for a trial of as many phlox cultivars as we can
test. We are especially interested in identifying selections that tolerate our
heat and humidity and not develop a terminal case of powdery mildew. This fungus
disease is a problem with many cultivars and has made some gardeners gun shy
about using the plant.
Garden phlox does best in full sun in a good, fertile soil that is well-watered
but never soggy. Plants should be given plenty of room in the perennial border
because 3-year-old plants can form clumps two feet across.
To keep plants from becoming overly crowded, the clump should be divided every
three or four years in the spring before new growth starts. After blooming it is
a good idea to trim flower heads off to prevent reseeding in the garden.
By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Extension Horticulturist
- Ornamentals
Extension News -
July 16, 1999
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