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United States / Grow / wild blue phlox

wild blue phlox (Phlox divaricata)
Photo: (c) Alicia Ballard, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

wild blue phlox

Phlox divaricata · Polemoniaceae · all Phlox records · also called Blue phlox · Wikipedia

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Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Wild blue phlox is rated fire resistant, with repeated low-flammability listings but limited primary evidence.

NC State’s extension service, working with the USFWS in 2005, placed it in the lowest of four flammability bands. NC State’s 2025 successor list again calls it low flammability, and its live Plant Toolbox uses the same tag.

The Nevada Division of Forestry and University of Nevada Cooperative Extension also rate wild blue phlox low in their Lake Tahoe landscaping guidance. That agreement broadens the geographic context, but the Nevada guide describes its ratings as rough estimates drawn from various sources, not scientific trials. The Plant Toolbox does not identify who assigned its values, so its matching tag supports the pattern without adding a clearly described testing method.

The sound conclusion is favorable but bounded: expert guidance consistently places wild blue phlox on the fire-resistant side, while the Nevada support is explicitly not trial-based and the North Carolina findings are expert-curated guidance. The Nevada guide also warns generally that plants turning brown often become high fire hazards. Wild blue phlox is a roughly three-foot perennial with moderate water needs, so its low rating is useful for plant selection, but it is not a promise that dry vegetation cannot burn.

Form
perennial
Mature height
~3 ft
Water need
moderate
Rated in
Lake Tahoe Basin, Nevada and California; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
2 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Lake Tahoe Basin, Nevada and California; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US
Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources
  • Fire-Resistant Landscaping in North Carolina (AG-874) · Official scoped edition
    • NC; complete normalized coverage · 2025-03-26

      The complete three-table AG-874 plant list is explicitly for North Carolina and contains 202 low-, medium-, or high-flammability rows. FireApproved accounts for all source rows under its strict taxonomy and lineage rules; source scope does not establish local suitability at a particular North Carolina site.

  • Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity (Ed. Bulletin 06-01) · Official scoped edition
    • Lake Tahoe Basin (CA, NV footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2006-01-01

      Nevada Division of Forestry and University of Nevada Cooperative Extension publish Bulletin 06-01 for the Lake Tahoe Basin and vicinity. FireApproved publishes 83 exact rated owners as basin context across Nevada and California. Rough estimates are not statewide or site ratings.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NE, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NE, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, VT, WI, WV.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 3b; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

33

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

33 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alabama (AL)
  • Arkansas (AR)
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • District of Columbia (DC)
  • Delaware (DE)
  • Florida (FL)
  • Georgia (GA)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Kansas (KS)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Louisiana (LA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • Minnesota (MN)
  • Missouri (MO)
  • Mississippi (MS)
  • North Carolina (NC)
  • Nebraska (NE)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • New York (NY)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Oklahoma (OK)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • South Carolina (SC)
  • South Dakota (SD)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Texas (TX)
  • Virginia (VA)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
  • West Virginia (WV)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (4)

Corroboration (2 rows from 2 sources)

  • North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox — plant profiles and flammability ratings — NC State Extension (plants.ces.ncsu.edu) · live facet capture accessed 2026-08-23 · original source Corroboration Expert-curated lineage: nc-tree resolves to Firewise Landscaping in North Carolina (E05-44596)

    “low flammability” · original source

    NC Toolbox facet capture lists "Phlox divaricata" under the low flammability tag.

  • Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity (Ed. Bulletin 06-01) — Nevada Division of Forestry / University of Nevada Cooperative Extension · Bulletin 06-01 (2006) · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: unr-tree

    “low — Phlox, wild or sweet williams — Phlox divaricata”

    Table 1's Fire Hazard column prints “low” for this taxon. The guide calls the rating a rough estimate of potential flammability, not a result of scientific trials. Its footnote says plants that turn brown often become high fire hazards and tells readers to mow grasses and forbs when they begin to turn brown.

Same genus in the directory · the Phlox group page

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Phlox divaricata (Blue phlox). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/phlox-divaricata/. Last verified 2026-08-23.