16 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
Phlox is essentially a garden plant as distinguished from those valuable 
for cut flowers. Groiv all you have room for. but grow it for outdoor 
effect alone; in the house its panicles look stiff and awkward. This is a 
mass of phlox subulata, the well-known moss pink 
Phlox Drunnnondi is 
the ancestor of all 
the annual sorts. It 
ivas found wild in 
Texas in 1834 
F LOWERS come cu¬ 
riously by t h e i r 
names, sometimes; and 
sometimes there is a 
great deal in the name, 
if we are at pains to dig 
it out. More than the 
brilliant coloring of cer¬ 
tain of its varieties did 
this plant’s peculiarly 
luminous quality inspire its sponsors, I am 
sure, to designate it by the Greek word for 
flame, which is “phlox.” For all dry old 
botanists are really poets; and what more 
natural than that, seeing it shine above all 
else around it, they should have hit upon 
this for its name? A flame illumines, shines, 
even as the flowers of the phlox. 
If there were no color but scarlet in the 
phlox family, it might be reasonable to as¬ 
sume, as some do, that the name referred 
to color. But there are as many colors as 
the proverbial rainbow shows, and only a 
few suggesting a flame ; moreover, this same 
name was once applied to certain varieties 
of a plant whose cognomen relates it to the 
Greek “lamp,” rather than to “flame”—the 
lychnis, or “rose of heaven,” “Jerusalem 
cross,” “mullein pink,” “rose campion,” 
“Cuckoo flower,” or “flower of Jove”—an 
assortment of nicknames, goodness knows! 
So lamps of the garden the lovely panicles 
of phlox always seem to me, uplifted like 
great torches that burn still and clear, to 
light all the space around. In this way they 
are flames, but not in any other. 
Wiiat Phlox Is 
Phlox is one of the essentially outdoor 
flowers, a garden plant as distinguished from 
a cutting or cut flower plant. Severed from 
the plant, phlox heads are stiff and stub¬ 
bornly defiant of arrangement, and all the 
splendid beauty which the blooming plant 
displays vanishes away somewhere, some¬ 
how, in the intimacy of indoors. Grow 
phlox—all you have room for—but grow 
it for outdoor and garden effect alone, and 
never with the idea of using the flowers 
themselves as decorations in the house. 
Perhaps there is no other plant that will 
yield as abundant bloom, over as long a 
period, with as little trouble and care, as 
phlox. And certainly there is nothing in 
the garden that pours out a more delicious 
fragrance than the spicy odor rising from 
it by night as well as day. 
That there are unpleasant colors no one 
can deny; but there are so many others, 
which may be had for the asking, or for 
the wise choosing, that no one need have his 
teeth set edgewise by the “horrid magentas” 
popularly associated with this family. 
Possibilities in Magenta 
Magenta is powerful, and continually 
crops out in this and that variety, but it is 
completely eradicated from many. So you 
may have any quantity of phlox desired, 
and never a touch of it, if you will. On 
the other hand, I wonder how many realize 
the shades and nuances possible in that 
range of tones where magenta finds a place, 
by means of a combination of phlox? A 
truly magnificent color symphony, rich be¬ 
yond all imagination, is possible, through 
careful selection ; and I have seen the most 
marked aversion to this unlovely color trans¬ 
formed into enthusiastic admiration, under 
the influence of such a combination. 
But one must either forswear the purples 
and magentas and lavenders altogether in 
choosing phlox; or he must forswear all 
the colors that are free from them. It is 
the two together that clash so abominably. 
Hardly another suedes, indeed, has colors 
Phlox cuspidata, or 
“star” phlox, is a 
dwarf with pretty 
star-shaped flowers 
in mixed colors 
so antagonistic amongst 
themselves as the phlox 
family presents. 
There seem to have 
been two distinct lines of 
color development with 
these plants; and al¬ 
though they are consid¬ 
ered in the so-called “cy¬ 
anic series,” which means 
that their basic color is blue and that, though 
they may run from this into red, they can 
never run from it into yellow, there are 
reds that have no hint of blue in them but— 
contrary to the law just mentioned, laid 
down by the botanists—do most certainly 
contain a hint of yellow. There is phlox 
Coquelicot for instance, as blazing a scarlet 
as any flower in the world ever was; and 
there is phlox Elizabeth Campbell, a lovely, 
soft, salmon pink. And neither scarlet nor 
salmon pink is possible without the admix¬ 
ture of yellow and the elimination of blue. 
So, though there is as yet no yellow phlox 
(growers are trying hard to produce one), 
there is this decided color opposition in the 
species, always to be remembered and reck¬ 
oned with and guarded against in making 
a collection or adding to one already made. 
Fall Planting Best 
The first thing to be remembered in cul¬ 
tivating phlox is that it is one of the peren¬ 
nials that are distinctly better for being 
planted in the fall. This is because it starts 
into growth at the first hint of spring, hence 
spring transplanting will interfere with its 
regular habit, and stunt it and set it back 
accordingly. The present month is the ideal 
time for handling it, either in plants or 
seeds; for the seeds of phlox benefit by the 
action of winter upon them, if they do not 
indeed require it to encourage them to germ¬ 
inate. Nothing is perhaps hardier than 
phlox; and in a state of nature, its seeds fall 
to the ground around the parent plant in 
the fall, and lie there, all uncovered or at 
best but partly covered with leaves and litter, 
