Phlox Blushing Bride

Large pure white stars, each with a soft cherry-pink eye at the centre, on bushy mounds up to 40cm. There is a subtle sweet scent, noticeable close up rather than across a garden. A Fleuroselect winner.

Its scale is what makes it useful. The stems are long and wiry but the flowers are small, which suits a posy, a buttonhole or a jam jar far better than a big arrangement, and that is exactly the scale most cottage wedding work is done at.

This is annual phlox, Phlox drummondii, and not the tall perennial border phlox people usually mean. It is compact, it flowers heavily through one summer, and then it is finished.

The seed needs complete darkness to germinate, which is where most failures come from. Cover it with about 5mm of compost and put card or black plastic over the tray until the shoots appear, then move it into good light. Deadhead regularly or the flowering season shortens sharply. It wants moist but well-drained ground in sun or light shade, and unlike the lean-soil annuals it appreciates reasonable fertility.