How to Grow Phlox 'Cherry Caramel' (for Flower Farmers and the Cutting Garden)

Introduction to Phlox Drummondii

If you’ve never grown annual phlox before, I can totally understand.

It’s not a usual plant for gardeners to grow like marigolds or zinnias - possibly because they are tricky to grow from seed, possibly because they have a weird growth habit, and possibly because they’re a bit too diminutive to be used like other flashier annuals. And for that reason, we don’t usually see them widely available for sale as a bedding plant in the garden center.

All that being said, phlox is a wonderful plant to grow as a cut flower. Specifically my favorite variety ‘Cherry Caramel’ that has these dreamy creamy-beige petals with bright fuchsia centers that perfectly blends with both brightly colored, saturated flowers as well as light, monotone, muted colored materials as well that just makes it a brilliantly versatile and underappreciated flower - but one that is a must-grow!

Phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’ Quick View

Botanical Name: Phlox drummondii ‘Cherry Caramel’

Growth Cycle: Hardy Annual

Propagation: Seed

Size: 12-24” width/height

Spacing: 6”

Light preference: Full Sun

Water: Moderate

How to Grow Phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’

The Trick to Germinating Phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’

Remember what I said about phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’ being hard to germinate?

Truth be told, it’s not really that difficult to germinate - so long as you know what they require to start sprouting.

Unlike most plants out there, phlox absolutely requires darkness in order to germinate. Like, complete darkness. Most other seeds require or are OK with being exposed to sunlight, but not phlox - if you sow them on the surface of the soil and exposed to sunlight, they won’t germinate.

There are several ways to ensure the phlox get the darkness that they need

1) Bury them under the soil (or vermiculite or gravel)

2) Start them off in a dark area - a cupboard, a closet, a garage

3) Cover your tray with another upturned tray to block out the light

I personally prefer the last one - it’s the easiest to do and allows for me to be able to lift up the lid, check it out for germinating seeds and then close it back down again - and is readily available and doesn’t require me to create a special setup for it.

We plant phlox seeds 2 to a cell (just to make sure one germinates) and then tape an upturned tray over the top - this will keep the light out. At around 70 F, phlox will germinate in a week or two - just keep peeking under the lid to see if they've started germinating or not.

Once the seeds have started germinating, you’ll want to get the burgeoning young seedlings under light. This is to ensure they don’t get super leggy and sad - although they will get a bit floppy as they grow, you’ll want to get them into higher light temperatures as soon as possible so they can grow in nice and strong.

How to Get Longer Stems on Phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’

One of the issues that a lot of people face with phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’ is short stems.

Phlox has a really weird growth habit. As opposed to say a dahlia - that puts on big sturdy vigorous growth with a large central stem from which lateral buds can grow - or as opposed to something like chocolate lace flower that puts out multiple stems from a central rosette of foliage - phlox grows a single central stem at first.

This central stem is straight and upright at first, but then the stem will start flopping over and getting bendy and twisting. Some people might think that this makes for a horrible looking plant and might rip it out at this point thinking that they’ve screwed up - but it’s not over just yet!

Just when you think that this thing is looking terrible and you’re questioning your life choices in regards to planting this, it will start to branch. From every single node of the main stem, you’ll start to see a little branch sprouting out. As the plant grows larger, those side branches will get longer and bigger. And those side branches will also produce more side branches.

However, phlox has another annoying habit that also makes cultivating them difficult in that they like to bloom relatively early. In fact, they’ll actually bloom in the tray as a seedling, which again - might make you think you screwed up.

But you haven’t. You’re fine. Your phlox is fine.

There’s one problem with your phlox blooming at such a small size. It wants to continue to bloom, and will be happy to do so since it’s about to set seed and complete its life cycle.

You don’t want that, because your phlox will just stay teeny tiny.

So instead, what you’re going to do is pinch off the developing flowers and buds. So instead of the phlox blooming, it’s going to instead put out more stems and leaves and grow a little bit taller.

And once you do this a couple of times, your phlox will get bigger and taller and then suddenly you’ve got a big and bushy phlox plant that has multiple lovely long stems for you to cut from.

And as an added plus, you can enjoy the pinched flower buds in tiny little bud vases for an extra-cute little arrangement!

And if you’d like to have even taller-straight-er stems, you can even stake or trellis them. We stake our phlox since we have a manageable amount of plants, which encourages the stems to be nice and straight instead of trailing along the dirt - straight stems are nice for arranging with since this extends the amount of usable stem length.

Here you can see the phlox plant growing onto the wooden canes - we don’t necessarily have to even tie them onto the canes, just kind of twist them up onto them

Harvesting and Designing with Phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’

Phlox has a really long harvest window - from the time when it’s in bud (and the first floret is just starting to unfurl) up until when it is fully open, so that makes it really nice to grow as well.

I personally like to harvest the phlox when the first couple florets are open - it provides the optimal length of vase life while also providing the optimal floral display as well.

Harvest in the cool of the early morning cutting all the way to the base of the plant (which will not only give you the longest stem length, but also encourage the plant to produce more nice long side shoots to harvest) and strip off any foliage or side shoots that will down below the water-line of where you’ll be arranging it into.

Designing with Phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’

I love phlox for its excellent versatility when it comes to floral design!

First of all, its coloration lends itself well to both the muted, subdued tones of wedding flower palettes - think Koko Loko roses and champagne lisianthus and Cafe au Lait dahlias in the same coveted blush-beige tones - but also works well as a contrast to more saturated and bold colors such as burgundies, blues, oranges and yellows such as brightly colored zinnias, blue bachelor buttons and yellow sunflowers.

In fact, given that it has such a small petal size, spray-like growth habit of its flowers and long shapely stems, I would argue that phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’ can mix with any flower - which makes it the perfect cut flower.

Seriously. Phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’ is the secret weapon of floral designers and flower farmers everywhere in making arrangements look amazingly magical and elegant. Tucked and woven between other flowers, echoing and mirroring and contrasting with other colors and textures, with stems that curl and twist and float above arrangements, it’s such a unique and amazing material that it’s a wonder more people don’t grow it.

I hope I’ve inspired you to grow this special little flower

Whether you’re a flower farmer, a floral designer or a home gardener, you should totally be growing this flower. Indeed, phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’ is going to forever be on my list of ‘must-grow’ flowers given its versatility, wonderful growth habit and beauty.

Are you growing this beautiful annual this year? Let us know in the comments below!