Plan a bed

Plants with purple and lilac flowers

Plants with purple, violet and lilac flowers: the great mixers of the border, and many of its spires.

Purple is the great mixer of the border. It sits between red and blue, so it gets on with both, and it is the colour of many of the spires that give a bed its rhythm: salvias, catmint, lavender and gayfeather. Bees favour blue and violet flowers, and much of this list is loud with them in summer.

Dark purples recede and soak up light: at a distance, in shade or at dusk they read as holes. Give them a pale neighbour, such as silver leaves, lime-green, soft yellow or white, and they glow instead. Lilac and lavender tints, the pale end of purple, read well at any distance and soften everything around them.

Every plant here has purple, violet or lilac flowers, or comes in one of them.

264 plants: 193 perennials, 31 bulbs, 13 grasses and 27 shrubs.

The dozen to start with

  • Hollyhock

    Hollyhock

    6 ft · early July to late August · also in pink, red, white and yellow

    Towering spires of wide, open flowers in almost every colour, the signature plant of the cottage garden.

  • Polyanthus primrose

    Polyanthus primrose

    8 in · late March to mid May · also in yellow, red, pink, blue and white

    Large, bright flowers in almost every colour, most with a yellow eye, in clusters on a single stout stalk above a rosette of crinkled leaves.

  • Lenten rose

    Lenten rose

    18 in · late March to early May · also in white and pink

    One of the first perennials to flower, with nodding, long-lasting blooms that often open while snow is still melting.

  • Garden phlox

    Garden phlox

    3½ ft · mid July to early September · also in pink and white

    Tall, often fragrant clusters of flowers that carry colour through the height of summer.

  • Common lilac

    Common lilac

    11½ ft · early May to late May · also in white and pink · host plant

    The lilac of old farmyards: large, heavily scented flower trusses in lilac, purple, white or pink in mid-spring, on a tall, suckering shrub that can live for a century.

  • Rose of Sharon

    Rose of Sharon

    10 ft · mid July to mid September · also in pink, white and blue

    An upright shrub with hollyhock-like flowers in pink, purple, white or violet-blue from midsummer to autumn, when few shrubs flower.

  • Tulip

    Tulip

    18 in · late April to mid May · also in red, pink, yellow, white and orange

    Clean, saturated colour on upright stems in mid to late spring.

  • Chaste tree

    Chaste tree

    11½ ft · early July to early September · also in white and pink

    A large shrub or small, multi-stemmed tree with aromatic, grey-green, fingered leaves and long spikes of lavender-blue flowers in the heat of summer, loved by bees and butterflies.

  • Hyacinth

    Hyacinth

    10 in · mid April to early May · also in blue, pink, white and yellow

    Dense, waxy spikes of intensely fragrant flowers in blue, purple, pink, white or soft yellow, in mid-spring.

  • Bigleaf hydrangea

    Bigleaf hydrangea

    5 ft · late June to late August · also in blue, pink and white

    The classic mophead and lacecap hydrangea, with big, glossy leaves and large flower heads.

  • Crocus

    Crocus

    5 in · late March to mid April · also in white and yellow

    Goblet-shaped flowers that open wide in early spring sun and feed the first bees of the year.

  • Ornamental onion 'Purple Sensation'

    Ornamental onion 'Purple Sensation'

    2½ ft · late May to early June

    Violet globes float on bare stems in the gap between spring bulbs and summer perennials.

A bed planned only from these plants

The planner was given only the plants on this page that suit zone 6 and full sun, and designed this 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) bed from them when the page was made.

A 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) bed at eye level in mid September: Common thyme, Verbena 'Homestead Purple', Big bluestem 'Blackhawks', Tatarian aster 'Jindai', Aromatic aster 'Raydon's Favorite', Siberian iris 'Caesar's Brother', Little bluestem 'The Blues', Tulip, Hyacinth 'Delft Blue', Crocus.
A 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) English border in zone 6, full sun, seen from the path in mid September.
3. Big bluestem 'Blackhawks'33. Big bluestem 'Blackhawks'33. Big bluestem 'Blackhawks'34. Tatarian aster 'Jindai'44. Tatarian aster 'Jindai'44. Tatarian aster 'Jindai'45. Aromatic aster 'Raydon's Favorite'52. Verbena 'Homestead Purple'22. Verbena 'Homestead Purple'22. Verbena 'Homestead Purple'21. Common thyme11. Common thyme11. Common thyme12. Verbena 'Homestead Purple'21. Common thyme11. Common thyme11. Common thyme11. Common thyme11. Common thyme12. Verbena 'Homestead Purple'26. Siberian iris 'Caesar's Brother'66. Siberian iris 'Caesar's Brother'66. Siberian iris 'Caesar's Brother'64. Tatarian aster 'Jindai'47. Little bluestem 'The Blues'77. Little bluestem 'The Blues'77. Little bluestem 'The Blues'77. Little bluestem 'The Blues'77. Little bluestem 'The Blues'77. Little bluestem 'The Blues'77. Little bluestem 'The Blues'77. Little bluestem 'The Blues'72. Verbena 'Homestead Purple'28. Tulip8. Tulip8. Tulip8. Tulip8. Tulip8. Tulip8. Tulip8. Tulip9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'9. Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'10. Crocus10. Crocus10. Crocus10. Crocus10. Crocus10. Crocus10. Crocus
From above, to scale. Each circle is one plant, as wide as the room it needs.

The plants

  1. 1 Common thyme × 8, lavender
  2. 2 Verbena 'Homestead Purple' × 6, purple
  3. 3 Big bluestem 'Blackhawks' × 3, purple
  4. 4 Tatarian aster 'Jindai' × 4, purple
  5. 5 Aromatic aster 'Raydon's Favorite' × 1, blue
  6. 6 Siberian iris 'Caesar's Brother' × 3, purple
  7. 7 Little bluestem 'The Blues' × 8, tan
  8. 8 Tulip × 8, red
  9. 9 Hyacinth 'Delft Blue' × 12, blue
  10. 10 Crocus × 7, white

Planned as an English border: 7 of the 8 groups (88%) are drifts, longer along the bed than they are deep. The bed is balanced: the left half carries 48% of the visual weight and the right half 52%. The scheme leans cool (lavender, purple and blue) and uses red for warmth, with tan and white to calm things between them.

The planner's own design check: 11 Excellent, 6 Good.

Open this bed in the planner Change its size, the sun or the style, move plants about, or swap one for another.

All 264 plants

Show all 264, by where they go in a bed

Front of a bed 105

Middle of a bed 95

Back of a bed 64

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