phlox - ONCE UPON A CONEFLOWER

Confusing Spring “Blues”

No, I don’t mean bluegrass music or feeling down in the dumps. I’m talking about spring bulbs featuring racemes of blue florets. Many are members of the scilla family which encompasses 80 to 90 species all by itself. They bloom at roughly the same time and look similar, so it can be challenging to keep them straight.

To make matters worse, many species are interchangeably referred to as squill or hyacinth because their Latin nomenclature is twisted and still unresolved. Subfamilies like bluebells can be further divided into English, Spanish or Virginia. Then there’s chionodoxa, Siberian squill, muscari, true hyacinth, and camassia — all blue, all spring blooming.

Do you know which is which? Does it matter?

Tall Garden Phlox for Nonstop Color

No summer flower display is complete without garden phlox, a workhorse of the home flowerbed since European naturalists first discovered our native species, Phlox paniculata. The name ‘phlox’ comes from the Greek for flame, and you can see why– there’s nothing shy about these stalwart mainstays.

Tall phlox not only put on a colorful show, they’re usually long-lived once established. Some are wonderfully fragrant. New introductions are more disease resistant than ever, and many repeat bloom, or just keep going like the Energizer Bunny.

In my quest to identify some of the best phlox choices for zone 6, I delved deeply into two exhaustive phlox trials, as well as drew on my own experience with some of the cultivars.

Let’s take a look at the top performers, new introductions and what makes tall phlox so desirable in the garden.

The Summer Garden At Dusk

Most of us go into our gardens in the mornings, after the sun is up and the dew has dried. Or we’re out on the patio for lunch or weeding on an overcast afternoon. We might give our beds a passing glance during a cookout.

Seldom do we think about appreciating the garden after sundown.

That’s usually when we’re busy with dinner, TV, meetings. But dusk is precisely when many flowers release their strongest fragrance, and the palest colors glow with an intensity not possible in daylight. If you want to get more out of your garden, consider an evening stroll. Some people plant “moon gardens” or all-white cultivars for admiring at dusk, but that’s not necessary.