Luminary® Backlight Tall Garden Phlox

Pure white flowers open in tight, well-defined panicles on this tall garden phlox, set against dark green leaves. Phlox paniculata Luminary® 'Backlight' grows 28 to 30 inches tall and 20 to 24 inches wide in full sun or part sun, hardy from Zone 3 through Zone 8, and fills out over its second summer. Backlight reblooms, flowering from midsummer into fall, and its leaves hold up in hot, humid weather. Tall garden phlox has been a midsummer standby in perennial borders for generations, and its classic complaint is powdery mildew graying the leaves by August. The Luminary series came out of Walters Gardens' trials, picked for dark leaves that stay clean through the season and for a sweet fragrance. Each flower is a narrow tube with nectar at the bottom, a shape made for long tongues, so swallowtails, hummingbird moths and hummingbirds come to them. The species, Phlox paniculata, is native to the eastern and central United States. Plants die back in winter, return from the roots in spring, and the stems make good cut flowers. Even mildew-resistant phlox stay cleanest with space between plants and air moving freely through the stems. Spaced 2 feet apart, three plants fill about a 6-foot stretch by the second summer.