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Phlox paniculata

It’s the smell that wins the week’s top spot for phlox. Every year it marks a turning point in the border, even the pivot of the year, when early summer is done and there is just the faintest hint of things winding down. That spicy scent, blending with a blast of honey from Buddleja fallowiana, jogs a different compartment  of memory; one that includes spiders’ webs spangled with dew.

It needed a soaking to open its tight little buds. We had no rain to speak of for a month. A dry Wimbledon. I was away. I put the sprinkler on for an hour when I got home and next morning the air was awash with Essence of July.

These plants have been in the garden for so long that I forget their names. Could it be Phlox paniculata (it is certainly that) ‘Eventide’?

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