I am curious if shearing and dividing right after flowering works well with these; that is also what I am thinking of doing :). I also started some cuttings in a soiless mix a few days ago, with a bit of root hormone (which might have been overkill with phlox since bits of it seem to root all over anyway). I love that it grows down over my stone wall, but I need to keep it at the front of the garden-- not strangling the echinacea three feet back! :) Plus I am looking to divide so I can use the same species in other areas of my garden to increase continuity, which is a focus in this my third year of gardening at this house. Repeating colors (silver and lime foliage, purple and blue blooms, spots of apricot and orange color), and now looking to propagate and divide so things are more repeated and uniform. [Rather paradoxically, I'm trying a lot of new species from seed at the same time, haha.] Whoops way off topic now -- anyway, I'll be dividing mine as soon as they fade! Good luck.

It crowds like CRAZY. It grew up, inside and over the outside of a pine bush for me last year. It didn't kill it, but boy that felt aggressive for me. It's not terrible to cut back, but honestly a find a sharp shovel to be way easier. I just dig it. That way I get a nice clear edge line. I pretty much do this every spring or I fall behind and regret it. That being said, once a year with a shovel isn't too bad. I like the look both green and flowering.

Good Morning, I am new to the forum so bear with me. I have phlox covering a slope behind my house. If you are deadheading them because they are losing their blooms in the container, that will not make them rebloom. Just keep them watered, but don't over water them until you plant them. Phlox sometimes will bloom again later in the season. The ones on my bank have done this, but never as spectacular as in the spring. I was having a problem with them dying out in the middle after they spread on the slope. I read where deadheading helps with that problem. So last year after the blooms had faded I took a hedge trimmer and cut off about an inch. Since I have so many on the slope that was the quickest and easiest way to accomplish it. It did work to help them fill out, and not die in the middle.

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.