Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Inspiration

Focus on color: The most vibrantly purple plants to add to your garden

Stacey Nguyen
By

To bring a color that signifies elegance and new beginnings into your garden, incorporate purple plants into your landscape. As you furnish your patio and yard at the start of the year, purple plants will infuse your space with a sense of calm. For flower bed layering, purple blooms also provide your garden with bold, yet not-too-overwhelming pops. To find the most beautiful purple plants out there and learn how to care for them, read about our top purple plant picks ahead.

A field of lavender flowers

Lavender

We couldn’t write a list about purple plants and not include lavender! Lavender is an incredibly hardy plant that’s typically perennial in climate zones 5 through 9. Its delicate purple blooms and calming fragrance are highlights of its appeal, but they aren’t the only ones. Lavender is also an easy plant to take care of. It grows prolifically and is incredibly forgiving with occasional bouts of neglect. It appreciates full sun and well-draining soil for lush expansion across your garden bed. You only need to water it when its soil feels dry—there’s not much need to fertilize it, as mixing in compost when you first plant it should be sufficient.

Forest pansy

In the fall, the forest pansy features a warm, red-orange color. But come springtime, it’ll flaunt pansy-like flowers that are a pretty lilac color. It does have specific needs, however. Doing best in climate zones 5 through 9, this plant will thrive in bright direct light and weekly watering. The forest pansy should be situated in a place where it can’t move around too much — saplings do best with structural support.

Related
Close up of purple passion plant leaves. The inside of the leaves are dark green, while the edges are violet

Purple passion plant

With velvety leaves covered in purple hairs, this foliage plant from Southeast Asia will certainly add a pop to your patio in zones 6 through 9, though many people also keep it as a houseplant. As long as you don’t overwater it, it should last you a good two to three years. Its pinkish-purple color makes it an ideal plant for spring — in fact, or prefers mild spring temperatures around 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. With this plant, more sunlight will deepen its brighter purple color, but direct light can also cause it to wilt and burn. To encourage growth, pinch the ends. Cut the flowers when they bloom, as they can become quite smelly.

Lavender Pebbles

For a light wash of purple color, add Lavender Pebbles, or Graptopetalum amethystinum, to the succulent arrangement in your garden. This cheerful plant is just what it sounds like, coming in chubby oval shapes that can fill out spaces next to your echeverias, crassulas, and hens and chicks. Like most succulents, it’s relatively low maintenance, but it does best in full sun — the more light you can give it, the more prominent its color will be.

Purple and blue hydrangeas

Hydrangea

Hydrangeas come in all kinds of colors, but a few trademarked types flaunt lovely washes of purple — think, Let’s Dance® Rhythmic Blue®, and Wee Bit Grumpy®. You can also experiment with your soil pH to get the color you want — acidic soil can make your hydrangea purple or blue. The big, round flowers make a statement addition to your flower garden. Care for your hydrangea in moderation since it can get sick with too much or too little care; it prefers medium watering and ample shade to thrive.

Tradescantia zebrina

The tradescantia zebrina can be the gift that never stops giving. This stunning plant features silvery leaves with stripes and a deep purple underside. With sufficient light and moist soil, it can keep pushing out new leaves. Native to Mexico, it’s hardy in climate zones 9 through 11, where it won’t freeze in the winter. That said, this tradescantia can also be kept indoors in most places as a stunning houseplant year-round; it looks especially stunning trailing from hanging planters.

oxalis plant with flowers

Oxalis triangularis

The oxalis triangularis, aka the false shamrock plant, resembles violet butterflies. It can be grown outside in zones 6 through 11, or be kept indoors or as annuals in other places. It makes for a particularly cheerful plant during the spring, during which you’ll likely find it in grocery stores. Like prayer plants, it folds its leaves at night and opens wide in the morning. To grow it from scratch, you can simply shove bulbs into the soil. Inside, this plant may go dormant every few years, so don’t fret if the leaves look dead. Hold back on watering — when you see a leaf pop up, start watering again.

If you’re in search of a pop of color that’s subtle yet statement-making for your garden, consider picking out vibrant purple flowers and foliage plants. From the classic lavender flower to Lavender Pebbles, your options are wide-ranging, no matter your budget and preference. You’ve got everything from low-maintenance succulents to blooms that might require a little more care. Whichever purple plants you choose, you’ll be able to add a refreshingly cool color to your garden with them.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Do you live in climate zone 10? Here’s our guide to choosing the perfect climate zone 10 plants
What you need to know about caring for climate zone 10 plants
Tomatillo plant

One part of the country that many gardeners envy is climate zone 10, a warm sanctuary for a variety of plants, thanks to its very long growing seasons and mild winters. Made up of the southernmost parts of the country, this region has a climate that's ideal for multiple rounds of harvests. While it has specific challenges with blisteringly hot summers, it’s an overall welcoming environment for plant life. Below, we’ve rounded up everything you need to know about zone 10 and all the plants that you can grow in it.

Where is climate zone 10?
Before we get into the specifics of climate zone 10, let’s talk about the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. When shopping for plants, you may see labels indicating a zone range — that basically tells you where the plant will be hardy for more than just one growing season. Essentially, the United States Department of Agriculture has divided the country into 13 regions, or climate zones, based on annual minimum temperature ranges. Zone 1 faces the coldest winters, while zone 13 usually has the warmest ones. Bearing this in mind, inhabitants of zone 10 will often experience warmer winters.

Read more
What to do with an old Christmas tree: 6 ways to recycle your tree after the holidays
From making firewood to mulch, here are ways to recycle Christmas trees
Ornament on a Christmas tree

Once all the Christmas festivities are over, it's time to take down holiday decorations and figure out what you're going to do with that huge Christmas tree. Unfortunately, every year a massive amount of Christmas trees end up in landfills where they don't have the opportunity to decompose and break down like they naturally would in a forest. This isn't good for the planet, and you'd be wasting a potential resource you could use for something else.

So if you're curious about what to do with an old Christmas tree and how to get the most out of it, here are some ways you can recycle it so it becomes a gift that keeps on giving.

Read more
Trying to beat the cold? Here are our favorite frost-resistant plants for any climate
Here's how to protect your plants from the cold this winter
Three types of heuchera growing outdoors

You spent all spring and summer tending to your garden. Now the weather is turning colder and the first heavy frosts are here. How can you help your flowers survive the winter? Keep reading to find out what plants can resist the cold and if and how to protect your plants from the freezing weather.

Which plants can survive a frost?
Evergreens are known for their ability to survive winter, but they aren’t the only cold-tolerant, frost-resistant plants out there! Leafy vegetables like cabbage, lettuce, kale, collards, and chard can tolerate some frost. Early spring blooming flowers like crocus, snowdrop, and primrose can all survive the winter, and pansies are especially resilient. Violas, hostas, heuchera, irises, lily of the valley, cyclamen, and phlox also tolerate frost and provide some visual interest, as do catmint, baptista, sedum, and peonies.

Read more