Phlox delight gardeners with vigorous and vibrant flowering. It is impossible to pass by them without stopping to admire their beauty. That is why owners of country houses often plant them in the front area, since they are not only able to decorate any area, but are also completely unpretentious in care.
Choosing a place
Planting phlox should be thought out. Active growth and lush flowering are possible only in an area with good lighting. No wind, draft, heat-loving flowers.
The best option is a sunny bed on the north side near the fence. They take root well under trees and shrubs.
Phlox flowers do not like lowlands and other areas where stagnation may occur in the soil. Groundwater must flow as deep as possible. It is best if the plant is planted on a hill.
Basics and rules, what to plant phlox with in a flower bed, ideas with photos
There are several rules for choosing a neighbor for a perennial, and it is advisable to follow each of them without fail:
- Choice of colors. The delicate color of the crop goes better with plants with blooming white flowers and inflorescences with a dark purple palette. Yellow, cream, peach shades will add aristocracy to the landscape.
- Flowering period. It is advisable to plant phlox next to perennials, which will bloom with them in tandem. Any variety of perennial hosta will be a good neighbor for phlox.
- When organizing the landscape, it is worth taking into account the structure of plant root systems. It is important that the neighbor’s roots do not interfere with the proper nutrition of the perennial.
- When planting a companion, it is necessary to leave enough space for the phlox to circulate air.
Landing
For perennial phlox, planting and care is as follows:
- correct choice of cuttings;
- landing time;
- landing features;
- bends;
- division;
- seeds.
The easiest way is cuttings. It is better to buy seedlings from professional flower growers. The best landing time is April-May.
In any case, build on the climatic characteristics of the region. In addition, perennials take root in the open ground, and already next September you can admire the flowering.
On the Internet you can see photos of different varieties of phlox with names. If you decide to use autumn planting, then this should be done long before frost. Otherwise the plant will freeze.
Which phloxes are the most beautiful
It is impossible to say definitively that one variety is better than another. After all, all these plants are extremely attractive. Some gardeners like low phloxes, others prefer bushy plants with large inflorescences. But despite the huge variety of varieties, most owners of country houses prefer the following varieties:
- Snow Avalanche . This is an early flowering group and has a pyramidal shape. The height of the plants reaches 80 cm. It blooms only in white;
- Delta . Also an early flowering variety, up to 1 m high. Its flowers are white with a crimson center;
- Hummingbird . A small-flowered variety, distinguished by branched inflorescences of gray-blue shades.
Selection by color scheme
The color range of phloxes is very diverse. To decorate your garden plot, you can choose flowers in shades of snow-white, dark purple, pink and lilac.
Attention : phloxes do not only have yellow shades.
Due to their delicate color, these plants go well with any white blooming flowers. This floral ensemble emphasizes elegance and romance. They also look good surrounded by purple shades, which give them depth. Light yellow or soft beige neighbors will also look beautiful in their surroundings. This color combination will add aristocracy, restraint and light harmony to the flowerbed.
Landing Features
In spring soil, cuttings are planted in well-prepared soil, always loosened.
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The distance between them should be at least 30 cm (this is the condition for low-growing flowers), 50-60 cm for tall ones. Immediately after planting, water thoroughly for quick rooting.
Rules for composing flower arrangements
Visiting floral exhibitions, people are amazed by the imagination and talent of the craftsmen who create real masterpieces even from ordinary-looking plants. Composing an exquisite flower arrangement requires not only ability and inspiration, but also knowledge of the basic rules of floristry.
Before you start creating a flower bed, you need to draw or draw up a design in your mind, and based on it, create a composition. A flower that has a contrasting shade to the main background is usually chosen as the main point.
Imagining what the flowerbed should look like, divide it into 8 parts of the same size.
To make the composition look bright and interesting, plants of different heights and colors are used.
The bouquet seems weightless if light colors are combined; dark ones make it heavy and lush. To give harmony to the flowerbed, you need to choose the right colors. The palette should be restrained, not flashy. Shades of the same paint are always successfully combined; contrasting tones in a certain sequence look good, starting with red and orange, and ending with blue and purple.
Bends
Phlox subulate can be propagated by cuttings in summer, autumn, and spring. To do this, just bend the side shoot to the ground and sprinkle it. After some time, the cuttings take root, are separated from the mother bush, and transplanted to a designated place.
How to properly plant a flowerbed with your own hands
To create a flower garden at your dacha, you first need to choose the optimal place for it, carefully dig up the area, and remove the remains of the roots and stems of the plants. Before planting flowers in a prepared flowerbed, you need to display it on a piece of paper. A detailed diagram helps you choose plants that fit perfectly together.
Seeds
This method for perennial varieties takes a long time. This is how annual phloxes are most often grown. Sowing of seeds occurs in the fall. Leave the container outside. Cover the top with leaves and snow.
In winter they become stratified. As soon as the snow melts, bring the container indoors so that the seeds begin to grow.
Main varieties
Since many varieties of phlox have been bred, it is possible to select plants that provide aromas and rich colors for a long time.
Creeping
To create a background in compositions, designers prefer to use flowers, shrubs, and dwarf trees, which turn green and bloom in April - early May. From creeping perennial plants in red, purple, pink, milky shades they create:
- discounts;
- arrays;
- curbs.
Ground cover phloxes are ideal for arranging alpine slides and creating single flower beds.
Creeping varieties are used to decorate retaining walls.
Loose-sodded
Unpretentious phloxes with a short stem bloom at the end of May. Lush bunches in which lilac, purple, violet small flowers are collected look exotic and emit a pleasant aroma.
Bush
Low-growing phloxes love acidic soil; only in such soil they are quickly accepted and have a sweetish smell. The inflorescences, consisting of a large number of pink, white, and red petals, make picturesque collages.
Tall bush phloxes bloom at different times and delight with their decorative appearance for at least a month. Some varieties have small flowers, others have large, spotted flowers, and many have unusual shades. Flowerbeds of tall phlox catch the eye with rich colors.
See also
Rules for planting and caring for lavender in a pot, how to grow it at home
Care
You can care for flowers step by step:
- During the growing season, water every two days, more often in hot weather;
- for good health, loosen the soil surface after watering;
- Weed young flowers regularly so that weeds do not have any opportunity to grow;
- Regular nutrition in the spring with a nitrogen composition (needed for the lushness of the green mass), potassium and phosphorus give abundant flowering.
Transfer
It is necessary to divide and replant phloxes. Over the years, the rhizome grows and becomes like a hummock in which a lot of dying tissue has accumulated. New shoots of the plant appear on the periphery, and the center weakens over time and almost does not bloom. A transplant for rejuvenation is carried out once every 5-7 years, but it can be done a little more often. The transplant procedure can be carried out in spring, summer or autumn.
For spring replanting (April-May), the soil is prepared in the fall. To do this, holes are dug, the distance between which is at least 50 cm for tall varieties and 20-30 cm for low-growing varieties. The pits are filled with compost and fertilizers, and the acidity of the soil is reduced with the help of lime. The additives are mixed and poured with water. Shoots 10-15 cm long are placed in pits for transplantation. In this case, the buds for renewal must be covered by 4 cm. After this, a layer of compost is poured, everything is compacted and covered with a layer of mulch of 10 cm.
You can replant phloxes in a blooming state. In this case, the seedling must be carefully dug up so that the root system is not damaged. In summer, abundant watering is required so that the roots do not dry out and take root safely. The pits need to be prepared in advance: 2 weeks before transplanting. The advantage of dividing at this time of year is that mistakes are eliminated when choosing certain varieties.
Phlox can be replanted in the fall until mid-September. Usually during this period the top part of the seedlings is cut off, which promotes better rooting. If phloxes do not have time to take root before the cold weather, they will die in winter.
Diseases and pests
Diseases can appear not only in plants that are poorly cared for, but with poor care and in the wrong planting location, diseases occur much more often. And without timely treatment, the bright and fragrant “inhabitants” of the flowerbed will quickly turn into dried flowers.
The most common disease that affects phlox is powdery mildew. This disease begins to affect the stems and leaves of the plant in late July - August. The attractive appearance of phlox quickly deteriorates: the surface of the flower is gradually covered with a white coating. The fungus first appears on the lower leaves. Then spider spots appear on the stems and upper leaves. Over time, the disease progresses, and the leaves affected by the fungus curl and dry out. This causes the perennial plant to weaken and die.
Treatment of perennial phlox should begin immediately as soon as you notice the first signs of the disease. Removing the affected leaves helps only partially; soon powdery mildew will appear on neighboring leaves. The main treatment is to treat the surface of the plant with a solution of soda and soap (dilute 2 teaspoons of soda and 40 g of soap in 10 liters of water). You can get rid of the disease only with regular (every 7-10 days) spraying with this solution.
These colorful flowers are also damaged by pests: wireworms, earwigs and nematodes. The wireworm damages the root system of phlox, causing the plants not only to become susceptible to various diseases, but also to die. Slices of potatoes and carrots will help get rid of this malicious pest. They must be buried in a flowerbed to a depth of 10 cm. Once every 5 days, the baits are dug up and destroyed along with the wireworms that have climbed inside. Earwigs provoke diseases of the leaves and spoil the buds; they get rid of them with drugs based on diazinon. And you can fight nematodes by planting calendula, marigolds or nasturtium next to the phloxes.
In order not to waste a lot of time on treating plants, they need to be carefully inspected periodically. Timely detection of diseases is necessary; pay special attention to newly acquired seedlings. If the shoots are twisted, they are most likely susceptible to disease. There is no point in treating young bushes; they need to be destroyed so as not to infect healthy plants.
Phlox are beautiful and not particularly demanding plants. Breeders have developed a huge variety of varieties of different colors. This variety will make it easy to create a unique landscape composition in your garden.
