There are many colours to choose from. Pink, red, purple, and white. I find the purple does best for me. Sorry not sure which variety it is as I've bought so many. Mine does well in both full sun and part shade. Here are some of mine in purple and pink. The White is candytuft.

Here is one more..with rockcress in the background. Another spring favorite of mine. The color is so vibrant it almost glows...

gorgeous, thanks!

I do love the purple - maybe I will get lucky finding some at the market this weekend...

Thanks and you're welcome Lauren :)

They sell it in the spring around here so I'm not sure if you will have any luck finding it now. But good luck!

IME, creeping phlox has a pretty short season of interest. It looks great in early spring when full of bloom but that doesn't last all that long. And then you are left with a rather scraggly looking plant that looks more dead than alive for the rest of the season. I once planted creeping phlox under a rose planting but ripped it out after one season because it looked half dead all summer long. It wasn't, but just had a very ragged, half green - half brown appearance.

Plantings I see of creeping phlox in clients' gardens look very similar at this time of year, so I know it wasn't just me :-) YMMV

what creeping phlox looks like in summer

Not true, if you take the time to trim them back after blooming. They stay in a nice neat mound and may even rebloom.

Tried that. Results were no better.

Regional differences. Here it doesn't look ratty after blooming, but does have a tendency to become infested with grass. It also may need more sun than the OP has in that spot. I've lost it several times in too much shade.

I'm surprised. Maybe you waited too long? I have many and all stay a nice mounded evergreen.

I use phlox stononifera. I like the leaves better. I trim off the flowers after blooming, but that's all I have to do. Works well in part shade. I also use aubrieta and iberis in the crevices of my rock wall. I trim these well back after flowering, and they look fine but not exciting during the summer. The phlox is the blue at the top of the wall (not the spikey flowers - that's camassia), there's a little bit of iberis nested at the top of the wall, but not in flower here. The red and low purple are aubrieta.

Here'a another with the iberis in bloom.

I also have campanula poscharskyana on a different full-sun rock wall. And this year I've added Callirhoe involucrata.

Of the four, Phlox subulata (moss phlox), P. stolonifera (creeping phlox), Aubretia (rock cress) and Arabis (also rock cress), I've found moss phlox to be very long-lived. I tend not to now use creeping phlox as a bit of a runner. I particularly like the colours of some of the rock cresses, especially the Aubretia hybrid 'Whitewell Gem' (below May 18, 2010).

hmm, good food for thought. I have actually been researching it more and found a lot of opinions like you've stated above (ratty summer looks).

Would a better alternative be veronica georgia blue for this space?

With your area being part shade, most likely it wouldn't get the ratty look. Even in my full sun areas (hot afternoon sun) they still look good. Being in zone 5 is a plus I'm sure.

Have used several creeping veronicas, including 'Georgia Blue' (latter; great ground cover for me, at least), but always in full sun.

Veronica 'Georgia Blue' is a great plant! Fully evergreen in my climate and with a very long bloom season. IMO, a much better choice than the phlox.

and btw - I'll bet your zone 5 has a much hotter summer than I do in my zone :-) Higher zones do not necessarily equate with summer heat.

Well, this may be a trial and error thing but I think I'm gonna order some Veronica from Bluestone Perennials and see how it does. Thanks all, as always!