Spreading phlox

Spreading Phlox doesn't just bloom – it carpet-bombs your garden with flowers so enthusiastically that you'll wonder if it has some kind of personal vendetta against bare soil. This low-growing perennial creates dense mats of needle-like foliage that disappear completely under waves of pink, purple, or white flowers in spring.

The individual flowers are small but perfectly formed, with five petals arranged in a neat star shape. But the real magic happens when hundreds of these flowers open simultaneously, creating a solid carpet of color that's so dense you can't see the foliage underneath. It's like someone took a paint roller to your garden and decided that "subtle" was not in the vocabulary.

What makes Spreading Phlox absolutely irresistible is how it solves multiple landscaping problems at once. Need ground cover for a slope? Check. Want to suppress weeds naturally? Double check. Looking for something that provides spectacular spring color and then quietly minds its own business the rest of the year? Triple check.

The evergreen foliage creates year-round ground cover, but spring is when this plant really earns its reputation. The blooming period is relatively short but so spectacular that people will plan their garden visits around it. After flowering, the plant forms a neat, dense mat that requires almost no maintenance. You'll find this floral carpet bomber adding spring drama and year-round ground cover to our median plantings, proving that sometimes the most aggressive spreaders are also the most welcome.