THE HERBACEOUS PHLOX.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5699, 19 October 1896, Page 4

THE HERBACEOUS PHLOX.

A splendid flower for colour and effect is the herbaceous phlox. It is as varied almost as any garden flower in range of colouring and habit of growth. We have yet to see the phlox well placed in gardens, the stilted, ugly regimental fashion of sticking it in rows in the border or elsewhere not revealing that wealth of colouring that is seen when boldly grouped by itself or associated with things of similar expression. The herbaceous phlox is divided into two distinct sections. One is the early or summer-flowering, issuing from P. suffruticosa, and creating gay masses of bloom during June and July. A suitable selection of these should be made to get colour into the garden as early in the summer as |3ossible, finishing with the taller kinds that have come through hybridising such North American species as P. paniculata, P. decussata, and others. The great point is to get a good selection of varieties, and if all crude, harsh and unpleasant coloui's are eradicated, a charming series will remain. In the herbaceous phlox, perhaps more than in any other flower, there is a surfeit of poor colours — magentas, dingy mauve, unhealthy-looking lilacs, and washy tints that we hope never to see again. Why raisers will persist in offering such colours I do not know, unless, as is possibly the case, there is a charm to some people in novelty, whether the variety be an outrage aa-ainst good taste or not. Etna is one of the best of all the phloxes, its flowers rich scarlet, decided and wellsha2)ed, borne, too, in dense heads, which in the sunshine of a summer or eai-ly autumn day are as brilliant as the gaudiest pelargonium. Among the earlier flowering phloxes wo may mention a few of the best as a guide to those who intend to grow this perennial. A fine white is Avalanche. This is the variety that stands out among all others in the largo collection of Phloxes in the Chiswick Gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society, and is worth planting to get the effect of the surface of white blossom ; it is not tall, but strong in growth and exceptionally free. Purest of All is also a good white, and to go the other extreme we get rich carmine-red colouring in a variety named Magnet, which, like Avalanche, is dwarf in growth. A rather tall kind, the habit of growth quite branching, is Lafayette, the flowers. mauve, with a tinge of blush, set off by a rose-coloured eye. It is not poor in colour, as perhaps the description of the shades would suggest. Other good varieties are Cr. W. Collock, crimson, plant compact in habit ; John Anderson, rich rose;- John Forbes, rosypink ; Earl of Mar, rich crimson self ; Albert Crousse, vermilion ; Alice Henderson, delicate rose ; and W. Eobinson, the best of all herbaceous phloxes, its colour a delicate salmon-rpse tint. One of the best of the delicate lilac-tinted kinds is Eugene Danzanvilliers. The herbaceous phlox is not at all difiicult to grow if the soil is made fairly rich, well dug, and rotten manure incorporated with it. The planter should remember it is a vigorous perennial, and, especially in very hot seasons, suffers greatly if the soil be poor and dry. Phloxes are not averse to moisture, and even when in quite moist places are perfectly happy, although on borders or in beds they succeed well, proving during the summer months among the showiest and finest features in the garden. A good way to propagate is by . cuttings to get thoroughly sturdy plants, not relying, as is so often done, upon root-divisions, theso being got from old worn-out plants, a mat of growth, the result of years' sojourn in the same spot. If to be divided, take the outer growths, which are strong, and not weak and starved, as those in the centre of the clump. We hope herbaceous phloxes will be taken in hand and made to contribute their quota of beauty to the garden in the summer months. They are, in their many lovely gradations of colour, known, though familiar in the borders, where they are often shown in a formal false way.