Phlox: Small Flowers, Big Impact
We have two types of Phlox in our garden: moss phlox and woodland phlox. They have both performed beautifully this year, so I’d like to share some photos!
The moss phlox, or phlox Subulata, is tucked in a small bed along the back of our house. This wall is North facing but receives a good amount of sun light. Flowers first began to appear around April 7th, so they have now been blooming for almost a month! I don’t remember the bloom time being quite as long in years past.
Alex’s mom, Carolyn of Carolyn’s Shade Gardens, recommended tucking hellebore in between the moss phlox. It looks great!
Although the flowers are tiny, the mass of petals makes quite an impact and is a welcome pop of color against our stone house. Remember, you can click on each photo to enlarge.
One of the best things about moss phlox is that it is evergreen. Once the flowers have finished blooming, the cushion of leaves remains green and adds texture to the garden.
Moss phlox and hellebore line the tiny bed to the left side of our back door. On the right side, we have peonies (Candy Stripe and Itoh Cora Louise), Hakonechloa grass, St. Johns Wort, and a cherry laurel in bloom.
The other variety of phlox we have is woodland phlox, or phlox divaricata, ‘May Breeze’. Compared to the moss phlox, the woodland phlox gets a few inches taller and is much less dense. ‘May Breeze’ opened its first flower about a week ago, on April 27. We have it planted around the base of a cherry laurel where it receives part-sun. We originally had it planted underneath our Arborvitae Green Giant and Carlesii Viburnum where it received full-shade. We moved it because it was not doing well and did not grow for us there. It seems much happier in part-sun!
The woodland phlox gets taller than the moss phlox at about 12-15”.
I think we originally had six woodland phlox plants. We must have lost 1-2 when we moved them out from under the arborvitae. I am eager from them to naturalize and spread to fill the space around the base of the laurel.
The woodland phlox anchors the entry on our “path to nowhere”. Our bleeding heart has bloomed for spectacularly long this year. Also picture are hosta ‘Stained Glass’, Astilbe “visions”, a cherry laurel, and a Snowball Viburnum bush in the back!
Oh, I should mention that the woodland phlox has a very light, sweet scent. The moss phlox does not have any scent at all. In the photo below you can see both the moss phlox and the woodland phlox! I love them both. We are planning to add more moss phlox in the new parterre garden beds in our front yard.
