There are sources on EBay from sellers with good ratings.

this is probably the type of plant that i would invest in a nice specimen.. and then tear it apart and propagate it.. so that by fall.. i would have many more duplicate plants ...

anything 'creeping' should be easy to propagate ... so why bother with seed ...

and if you can make 10 plants.. for the price of one.. you will be way ahead of the game .....

ken

Ditto.

@ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5, I'm covering about 500 square feet, on a new hill where runoff water goes. It's a triangular area, about 100' long and 10' high.

My three issues are:

1. Cost

2. Erosion control

3. Time

I'm really hoping to get it all covered ASAP, but I can't afford to buy 300 plants @ $10-12 /each :-/ Nor do I have the time to plant that many.

That's why I'm thinking seeds... a mixed bag of 1500, toss them out, and if 300 of them come up then I'll be happy.

I'm not sure creeping phlox is going to help with erosion control. Also, here where I live in central Kentucky, it starts looking bad after it blooms.

Another reason I didn't want to invest a ton of money in it, in case it doesn't work the way I'm hoping :-O

I'm about to run out of time, though, so maybe I'll abandon the phlox idea and just use the ajuga I already have. It'll take a LOT more time, but I already have it so it's virtually free.

Ajuga makes a nice ground cover for a small area. I'd never use it for a large area and it certainly isn't deep rooted enough to hold back erosion if the erosion threat is serious and ongoing. a hundred feet of area that needs groundcover is a very large area. I'd look into a range of plants including some ornamental grasses, perhaps panicums--natives and deep rooted--with perhaps areas of ajuga and other low ground covers.

Many years ago in cool weather...fall or winter..I transplanted a bunch of creeping phlox from my garden to a long hillside at our recreation center. I just dug up clumps and separated out small rooted strands of it. The hillside had ugly bare patches and I planted the phlox in those. It has been maybe 20 years. They spread out nicely and bloom every spring right beside the walk trail. They either mow or weedeat right over them. They don't ever look ugly in my opinion and I would imagine they're better for erosion than bare patches. they're pretty dense when established. I wonder if you'd have any luck if y ou asked some people for some rooted pieces. The downside over seeds is that you'd have to plant each one. I have no idea how well they come up from seed.

I'm wondering if American Meadows would have some seeds. Eden Brothers has some seeds I haven't seen other places. My favorite seed co. is Swallowtail .

outsidepride.com sells bulk seed and they have a whole page on groundcovers.

Good luck, your hillside will be awesome!