Sweet William: AKA Phlox

Despite the fact that FLOODING is a major concern in Iowa right now.........the subject for this post is FLOX........I mean, PHLOX........Prairie Phlox to be exact, the kind currently blooming in our road ditch, a holdover from the era of the tall-grass prairie.

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When I was a kid, the adults in my life referred to this ditch wildflower as "Sweet William" (more on that later). I've been wishing to show you the various color shades of Prairie Phlox. I didn't adjust the color of any of these photos, except to darken the scenes a bit.

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First of all, the white:

Then there's light lavendar:

And, light rosy pink:

Lastly, this isn't a very good photo, but its trying to show the darker rosy pink shade:

At the top right of the blog is a photo showing a butterfly on a Phlox. Yesterday, after walking my usual route along the road checking out the Phlox patches in the ditch, I had started to return up the driveway when I heard an unusual birdsong........coming from the other direction on the road, where I normally don't go. Honestly, this was my thought, "Ok, bird, you're telling me to walk your way for some reason, and, it had better be a good one!" And, it was! There was another patch of Phlox over there, and a butterfly was fluttering about, engaged in his daily nectar gathering, offering me an opportunity to catch him in action on camera!

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Back to the Sweet William/Phlox issue.........I've looked it up in the three wildflower books I have here at home. One of the books has "Sweet William" in its index, and, if I'm understanding the information correctly, that nickname actually refers to the version of wild Phlox shown below, with its blooms forming an elongated, taller cluster. We saw many patches like this on our way up to the Mall of America the other day; the photo below was taken near the red crane at Rosemount, MN.

"Sweet William" is also another name for the Dianthus flower, some of which I have purchased and planted in our perennial flower beds near the house.

Click here to read the Wikipedia entry for Dianthus/Sweet William, which also includes info about the historical origin of the name "Sweet William".

In the ditch below our mailbox there is usually a small patch of this Sweet William type of Phlox, but it blooms later in June.

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Enjoy Phlox season........it passes by too quickly!!!

(I'm going upstairs now to camoflage the gray hairs, with Clairol Navajo Bronze........a very nice color, actually! If you're still blessed with non-gray hair, be ecstatic.......like Phlox season, it will pass by too quickly, also!)