Purple flowering plants can brighten up your yard all year. The right purple-flowering shrub can add a touch of “royalty” to an otherwise monotonous garden scene.
If you’re planting a variety of monochromatic flowers, purple blossoms will give the group a pop of color and interest, too.
Finding the right shades of purple can be challenging due to the sheer number of options. You should also consider how well-suited the plant is to the climate in your area.
Shrubs are permanent fixtures in your yard, so choose the ones that are the most suitable for your location.
1. Spirea
Spirea (spiraea japonica) produces beautiful flowers, has vivid leaves, and brings year-round color to your landscape. This flowering shrub’s lovely lacy flowers can be white, pink, red, or mauve.
Spirea is suitable for use as a groundcover and hedge in any setting. Because of its long blooming period, fine-textured foliage, and variety in size, it is often used in mass plantings and perennial beds.
The plant is resistant to a variety of environmental factors, including poor soil, heat, cold, humidity, drought, and urban pollution. Because it is easy to care for and grows quickly, it is one of the most popular blooming shrubs.
2. Daphnes
Daphnes are beautiful bushes with white to light pink or purple tubular flowers and tiny red berries. They are well-known for their fragrant, vibrant flowers.
Winter Daphne, often known as the “romance plant,” blooms from mid-February until early March. The plant sheds its thin, light green leaves in the winter.
Daphnes are great shade garden plants that can be used as a single specimen or as part of a mass planting. They’re also ideal for container gardening.
3. Scotch Heather
Scotch heather (calluna vulgaris) blooms through summer to early October, with flowers that are typically mauve, purple, or white.
Heather grows slowly, so it takes a while to reach its mature height of around 18 inches. Because it is a low-growing plant, it is often used as a groundcover. Its little evergreen, scale-like leaves are as precious as its flowers.
This variety of heather is a favorite of gardeners and beneficial insects alike.
4. Golden Dewdrops
The golden dewdrop (duranta erecta) is a fast-growing plant with luscious, evergreen foliage. Throughout the blooming season, it produces dozens of light blue, white, or violet flower clusters.
This plant features beautiful foliage with rounded or oval leaves that are around 2 inches long. Some varieties have gold or variegated leaves.
When planted in the spring, the golden dewdrop swiftly grows into a little flowering shrub. It can grow to the size of a small tree in a few years in warm climates.
During the fall, clusters of yellow or orange berries emerge.
5. Bush Clover
Bush clover is a deciduous plant with arching stems that form a fountain-like mound. It offers much-needed color and intrigue to the late summer/early fall landscape.
This lovely, lacy-looking shrub blooms with exquisite small white, pink, or purple flowers. It has small leaves and willowy stalks that make a lasting impression. Use this shrub as a focal point or as a border to add fall interest.
Full sun is best for blooming.
6. Clematis
The clematis is a woody creeping plant with beautiful flowers. The flowers bloom in a wide range of colors, shapes, and sizes, followed by eye-catching seed heads. Varieties with purple blossoms are particularly attractive.
The purple clematis bloom in spring. The blossoms have a lovely bell shape and hang from their stems.
Clematis can envelop poles, pergolas, arbors, and fences and grow up to 8 feet in one season. They can also crawl across the ground or swing gracefully from a container.
7. Purple Haze Butterfly Bush
The ‘Purple Haze’ butterfly bush, or buddleja, is a one-of-a-kind cultivar. It features unique horizontal branches.
It has rich green foliage and dark purple flowers that bloom all year. From midsummer through winter, the blossoms extend outward and downward like a pinwheel.
This shrub works well as a border and edging plant, but it can also be planted near a window, along a path, or beside a patio to enjoy fragrant flowers throughout the season.
8. Magnolia ‘Ann’
Magnolia ‘Ann’ can be a large shrub or a tiny tree. This magnolia, like other magnolia cultivars, is a prolific bloomer.
The flowers are tulip-shaped and deep purple in color. They bloom before the foliage appears in the spring. The blossoms usually cover the entire plant.
In full-sun gardens, the large, faintly scented flowers are a huge hit. Magnolia ‘Ann’ does well with moist soil but will need protection from strong winds.
9. Azaleas
Azaleas are one of the most popular flowering plants. They have beautiful trumpet-shaped blossoms that come in a variety of vibrant colors, including bright purple. During the blooming season, the low-lying shrub is covered in flowers.
Deciduous azaleas are hardier than evergreen azaleas. These varieties bloom from spring to fall and thrive in shade.
