I know several really great Phloxes, but not that short. Personally I don't have a good experience with the 'shorties'. I had one called Red Flame. The colour was nice, but it was the only one that died in the winter(the whole clump!), and I NEVER had a phlox that DIED! in my garden before. I consider them a kind of 'monstrosity' of some sort. Actually many of the new ones are advertised with big fuss as Improved, but I can't really see any improvement.

Instead of worrying about just the nice flowers, how about a phlox that is nice either in or out of bloom?
That is of course if you like variegated foliage!
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Flora

Thanks for the suggestion but I always think that too often the flower of the variegated version of a plant is less....impressive than that of the corresponding non-variegated.

No picture yet but I'm having good success with 'Aida' this year. It's only the second year but so far I'm loving it. The plain green foliage stays nice and it's just blooming a beautiful, clear dark magenta color. I have it growing on both the east and south sides of my house where it gets part/full sun and haven't seen any sign of powdery mildew. Height is just at 2 1/2 ft. I shovel pruned all my other tall phlox in July as they were horribly affected by PM. I left 'David' and 'Aida' alone since they showed no signs of it.

The Flame series is great. I have Light Pink flame and just bought a white at Lowes of all places last week. It does get some mildew, however, I planted two pots ten years ago and have had enough seedlings to move to numerous places over the years.
It's beautiful.

Try this one called "Lord Clayton." It's beautiful! It's taller than you wanted, but look at it!

Here is a link that might be useful: Lord Clayton

I have a couple of short varieties of phlox, but even they are taller than 2 feet, so if that is your limit you are probably out of luck.

I will 'take' 2.5 feet in height ;).

(My "Peppermint Twist" phlox is less than 2 feet)

"Bright Eyes" and Eva Cullum are pinks and very mildew resistant. You can control for height somewhat by pinching once in May and again early-mid June. The plants will be shorter and the flowers will be on many smaller stems, but still very floriferous. However, in is in Phlox's nature to be upright and not-short. See if you can find on the internet an article that compares about 30 different phlox for mildew resistence. It's very good. I'll see if I can find source.

Now I remember: Marshall's Delight is supposed to be shorter and fairly mildew resistent. Maybe Claire Grace?

Good luck,
idabean

I appreciate the input.

Has anyone had experience with "Junior Dance"?

I am revisiting the idea of a variegated PHLOX. Any experience with SHOCKWAVE?

I have bought 2 variegated phloxes recently: Gold Mine and Silver Mine. They both died with a speed of light. No will to live whatsoever.

Yah, me too. They died so quick I didn't even have time to learn the names. However, Nora Leigh lived a long time and was very pretty.

I have two of the garden phlox which are shorter than most (about 2 ft tall) and are supposed to be "compact" varieties. I don't know about specific mildew resistance, but they are fine in my garden.

Franz Schubert is a beautiful light purple-mix one, hardy and forms a slow-growing clump. It can fade a little in very bright sun but mine gets just a bit of shade from the hottest part of the day from a large rose bush nearby and is a beautiful colour. It almost glows sometimes.

Watermelon Punch is my other compact variety ... a pink, fairly bright. Very healthy and hardy again.

These are the two compact varieties I have, but there are quite a few others out there. They are basically the same as the tall garden phlox in every other way, just about a foot shorter :)

Thank you czig et al for all this good information re such PHLOX. I did decide to 'go' variegated with SHOCKWAVE.

(Although echinaceamaniac I did pick up a couple LORD CLAYTON and BLUE PARADISE for other areas)