The Canadian Garden Council’s promotion ‘Live The Garden Life‘ for this year includes a collaboration with Communities in Bloom and is inspiring everyone to “plant purple, the colour theme of the year in 2023“.

According to the council, purple was chosen for the variety of effects the hue has on mind and body including:

• Uplifting your spirits
• Calming your mind
• Enhancing a feeling of spirituality
• Encouraging your imagination and creativity

Now, I totally agree that purple is a wonderful colour but I’m not sure it stands out for these particular qualities. In fact, I’d argue that most any colour can uplift or calm or transport or inspire depending on your mood and taste.

But, to me, purple is an outstanding choice for plants or flowers in the garden for other, equally wonderful reasons:

• Purple is also often associated with royalty, nobility, luxury, power, and ambition. Oh, yeah!

• Technically, purple doesn’t exist. It’s called a non-spectral colour because there is no wavelength alone that will make you perceive the colour purple. I love the idea of adding a touch of the metaphysical to the garden. BTW: If you want to learn a little more about this weirdness, check out Crafting A Rainbow’s great post entitled Purple Only Exists In Our Brains?

• There’s this thing called the Purple Earth Hypothesis. Really. Back when there were more plants than animals on Plant Earth, like, we’re talking around 3 billion years ago, it’s possible that because photosynthetic life forms (what we call plants) were made up of a molecule that was much simpler than the more complex chlorophyll, the world appeared purple rather than green. Well, the purple that’s perceived (it being non-spectral and all). And you’d have to assume there was something out there that had eyeballs to perceive all this purpleness. But I digress.

Some of my favourite purple plants for the garden

Calibrachoa

Calibrachoa (Million Bells) is one of those plant container classics that always works a charm. They’re a great ‘filler’ and a ‘spiller’ with non-stop blooms basically the entire growing season. There are so many purple versions to choose from but I love this striped version in particular. And I love how Plectranthus ‘Nico’ (the dark textured leaves with deep purple undersides) gives the planting unexpected texture and depth of colour. As a bonus, Nico has a semi-prostrate habit so you can rely on it not to overtake your other plantings in a container. For my complete container recipe, go to Purple Reigns All Summer.

Above are two more Calibrachoa that I’ve grown over the years. At left is a Calibrachoa hybrid whose name I’ve lost, unfortunately. I love how the plant blooms in a variety of purple shades from vibrant to pale. At right is Calibrachoa Minifamous Double Chiffon.

Petunia

Another container classic is the humble Petunia. Although petunias have a rep for being old-fashioned (and that’s not a bad thing), they can still pull off a modern, zingy planting, especially if you use them in a great mass of punchy colour for a real Wowza! effect, like the container planting above featuring only two flowers: Blue Wave Petunias and Sanvitalia (Creeping Zinnia) Golden Yellow. Another fun petunia option is purple splashed with specks of white which debuted back in 2017. There seems to be several names for this starry looking bloom–Night Sky, Starry Night and Galaxy–but they all deliver showy deep purple petunia flowers with those distinctive splotches of white. Magical!

Astilbe hybrid

This year Proven Winners is introducing a new Astilbe hybrid which I’m entranced by. ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, shown above, is the only dark leafed Astilbe with dark purple flowers available at the moment. The leaves start off yellow and darken with age. This astilbe can grow in shade but loves best stronger indirect light so if you have an open, north-facing bed, this the the plant for you.

Lilacs

I have a confession to make. Every year in late spring, I pack up my garden shears and take a ramble down some of the less frequented gravel roads near our cottage in Ontario. I’m in hot pursuit of some lilac blooms. I can’t grow lilacs myself. I don’t have enough sun exposure in my woodland garden. So I steal some branches from shrubs (I always prune my secret lilacs responsibly!) that once graced the front entrance of settlers’ homes and now are the only remaining trace of them. I wrote a little about this wonderful history in my post In Praise Of Lilacs. I just love the scent of lilacs and I can’t bear to welcome in summer without a vase bursting with a bunch of blooming lilac branches.

To purchase your own plants, check Home Depot’s outdoor garden supply offerings. They often have a good selection. If you live in B.C., Surrey-based Art’s Nursery has a huge selection.

Clematis

I have a real soft spot for clematis. They’re relatively easy to grow and maintain (once you wrap your head around the different pruning groups) and they can be trained to grow up everything from a trellis or a fence to a shrub or tree. The purple ones are lovely but the doubles, like the ones shown above, can be breathtaking. B.C., Victoria-based Wildwood Express has a variety of purple doubles to choose from which you can order online with Canada-wide shipping.

SIDE NOTE: You can get even more bang for your buck with plants that bloom twice a year. I cover several plants, including a purple clematis and a purple lilac that do just that in my post Put The Blooms On Repeat.

Delphiniums

Delphiniums are a classic cottage garden choice but I think they can work in just about any style of garden so long as you’ve got the room to really showcase these babies in full sun. The deep purple varieties practically vibrate with colour.

Selwyn, Ontario-based Blossom Hill Nursery specializes in delphiniums. Their Spring 2023 catalogue offers 15 different plants, some of which are a magnificent purple.

And if purple isn’t your thing…

Last year, the council urged Canadian gardeners to Plant Red! So I wrote up a post of some of my favourite choices and a couple of unconventional ways of introducing red into a garden, including massing eye-catching Kniphofia, as seen at Sissinghurst Garden, and using red-leaved Caladium as a groundcover.

Your garden is out there. Grow boldly!