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June Blooms: Phlox

Photo by Keith Pomakis
Phlox paniculata.  Photo by Keith Pomakis

One of the things I love about June is seeing the phlox in full bloom. I love its masses of small, star-shaped flowers bedecking garden borders, filling them with colour.

Most phlox people grow in British borders are derived from the American native phlox paniculata. Phlox is a relative new come to British gardens as it was brought from America by phlox-breeder Captain Bertram Symons-Jeune in the 1950s and made popular by gardener Alan Bloom in the 1970s.

Phlox flowers (c) Ella Johnston

Annoyingly,  much as I love them, and however many times I read they are easy to cultivate, these flowers do not grow in my garden – they don’t seem to like our Essex estuary clay soil. So I will have to content myself admiring other’s borders and with drawing these flowers instead.