Carolina Phlox Polemoniaceae (Phlox Family)
The wild phlox that grows around my mountain holler is in full bloom. The flower fills the air with a wonderful floral scent.
Even though the plants are wild and grow fairly close together, they have varying hues. Some are a deep hot pink others a pale pink and still others are almost lavender.
Phlox is a common wildflower and can be found throughout the eastern United States. The plants are hardy and seem to do well in a variety of conditions.
My phlox is growing throughout my flower beds as well as in the uncultivated areas surrounding our home.
The color of the pink petals stand out brightly against the green surroundings and the blue of a Carolina sky.
The blooms are almost identical to a plant we call thrift, but thrift grows very close to the ground and phlox blooms a top long stems.
Wild phlox is one of my favorite flowers of summer.
Last night’s video: Planting Flowers & Memories in Appalachia.
Tipper
All I’m planting from now is perennials and these wild phlox will certainly be an added attraction. I need to transplant my Iris but the ground is too hard. We desperately need rain here in the Tennessee valley!
I have Phlox in my flower beds that look just like yours and I enjoy them every summer:) I really love the perennials that come up every year. Like you I fill in with some annuals and just drink in the beauty of them all displaying their beautiful flowers.
I mowed one acre of grass yesterday, gotta go and get the other acre mowed now. God Bless and keep ya all!
Thanks for sharing the beautiful flowers.
So glad you all have these to enjoy. There is also a blue wood phlox that blooms earlier. It is not as showy as the pink nor as sweet smelling but still a nice find in spring woods. Guess you will be learning this season whether or not the “big garden” is big enough to satisfy your hankering to plant things. I have a suspicion that dyed-in-the-wool gardeners do not know how much land that would be. At least, I do not know for myself.
Mama had phlox growing in her flower beds. I’ve always loved their color.
I love its pretty cousin, Phlox divaricata, which grows in wooded areas of my native Kentucky. It’s a pale lavender-tinged blue and has a wonderful fragrance. We called it wild Sweet William. It bears little resemblance to the Sweet William sold in nurseries and is a totally different genus – Dianthus.
Yes Patrica, I have what my Mana and Granny called sweet Williams and they do smell wonderful.
I’ve been trying to find out if they’re the same that people are calling Phlox, so you have solved my puzzle. Thank you
Mine aren’t doing well this year.
They look like they have some kind of blight?
I’ve been watering because of the
lack of rain, but it hasn’t helped
Do you know what I can do to treat the problem?
My Mama gave them to me some 40+ years ago.
Also it makes sense that it is the wild kind, because Mama was always going into the woods and finding wild flowers.
My birth flower is the Lily of the valley and she found a wild one
and gave it to me. I miss her dearly
Tipper, sometimes the simplest of subjects makes for healthy discussion as does Phlox and thrift. Now let’s not forget the wild sweet pea who adorned, along with phlox, many of my “delicious” mud pie creations as a child. To this day if I’ve got phlox and sweet pea, I feel like a wealthy princess! The creation our Lord has given and surrounded us with in these hills (compared to our west these are hills) is cause for jubilation and appreciation! I for one feel I’m under the gauntlet and flowers, gardening and nature take me to a beautiful place where I can hide in the cleft of the rock for awhile to find a renewal and find my strength to walk into this world again into what awaits me next…that’s why winter is such a downer being stuck like Chuck indoors.
Such beautiful flowers. Must be a wonderful addition to the other flowers you’ve planted.
Wild phlox is one of my favorites, too, and of my grandmother who always had it bordering the front of her woods. Plain as day I can see in my mind the magenta pink with the green backdrop; phlox always makes me think of her yard, which I dearly loved as a child.
We had the tall bluish-lavender phlox growing around one side of our house in Ohio when I was a child. I always loved the smell and the beauty of them. Mom would pick some along with roses, hydrangeas and some other flowers and put them in a vase and set it on our dining room table. I don’t have the tall phlox, but I do have the pink creeping phlox near the sidewalk by our house. I’m going to have to move some of it as it has crept over onto a large portion of the sidewalk. We finally received a small amount of rain a few days ago. It was not nearly enough but we are thankful for it.
I have seen this flower along the road for years it’s beautiful. I finally broke down and bought a commercial plant. so happy I did. who knows what the purple flower that just started popping up is?
Beautiful flowers! I’ve not seen any around my area, but honestly if I had I probably thought they were a cluster of Impatiens or also know as Touch-me-nots. The small flower itself looks similar to Impatiens, so if had seen them on around the area I’d probably never noticed if they had long stems or not. I’m a learning more about flowers I’d never heard of from you Tipper. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. I appreciate it!
I guess Thrift is another name for what we know as Creeping Phlox. It also comes in varying shades of pink, as well as lavender.
Such a beautiful flower. Wildflowers are my favorites. I went to Alaska one June and couldn’t believe all the wonderful wildflowers. The were everywhere! Not as majestic as your phlox but ground cover, lovely. Thanks Tipper.
I hope all the new flowers you planted in your video last evening keep blooming and growing for you. The wild pflox is just beautiful with its varied shades. I don’t have any growing anywhere near me. The only pflox I have ever seen growing in someone’s yard nearby is creeping pflox which is a beautiful ground cover. I always want to plant that on my banks and just never remember to do it for some reason. I am gonna have to be on the lookout for wild pflox and dig up a couple to get them started. Enjoy your little grandsons…I know they have stolen your heart by now!
We have “thrift “ that folks plant on hill sides in the country. I think it is similar
I have had these for decades, I got these from my mother and she had them for decades. These can vary in color over the years. Some of them have been lavender color, pink, and some are white with pink eyes in the center. Over the years one of them became a snow white color, it is beautiful. They smell so good, very sweet. Every time I look at these and smell them they make think of my late Mother, she loved them. Flowers like these take me back in time.
My grandmother had phlox in her yard and I always think of her when I see it.
I love the wild phlox. My flowers are looking pitiful with the hot weather and lack of rain. I’m enjoying walking through the gardens with you.
How fortunate you and Matt are to have two precious baby boys to love on❣️
I love the sweet look of this flower. So happy for you and your family on the birth of another sweet grandson.
I love learning about all the flowers. We are fairly new to gardening and we just love it.
For the first time, I have a wild, tall pink phlox in my flower bed. It’s so pretty and now when I see that flower, I think of my mountain friend Tipper : ). Thank you for sharing Tipper.