The Color Purple — Seductive Purple Foliage for Sophisticated Landscapes

by Heather Prince

We may love the cool blues or sizzling chartreuses, but what sets off these colors in combinations?

Purple. A saturated foil of deep dark wine complements and contrasts with other colors, making them shimmer and pop. From statement trees to seductive shrubs, purple foliage can be found woven through our landscapes. Let’s take a look at some fantastic woody plants for big, bold splashes of rich dark leaves.

Make a Statement with Trees

Specimen trees give us arresting moments in the landscape. These dramatic focal points can literally stop us in our tracks and beckon for close examination. The lacy leaves of a delicate cutleaf Japanese maple can act as a purple curtain over green or gold ground covers. Your eye may skim over it at first, but its charming cascade of elegant leaves begs to be savored and enjoyed. Often, contrasting plants in blue or lime show off a Japanese maple so it doesn’t disappear into the shade. Site these tender plants carefully in part shade and out of winter winds. Japanese maples tend to be slow growing and come in a bevy of sizes and shapes from mounding shrubs to mid-sized trees. Try silvery spotted dead nettle, miniature blue hosta, or Japanese painted fern as a ground cover to highlight their dusky leaves. It’s an instantly cool combination that adds a serene element to the shade garden.

For a sun-loving purple foliage tree, consider Forest Pansy, Merlot, or Ruby Falls redbuds. Redbud thrives in part shade to full sun and tolerates a wide range of soils as long as they don’t have wet feet. Forest Pansy and Merlot cultivars are 15 to 20 feet and provide a large dollop of purple in the landscape that becomes bronze as temperatures heat up in August. Their thin twigs will be filled with the characteristic pink flowers in April. Ruby Falls is a small weeping specimen redbud that’s easily tucked into a small space. Redbud in full leaf is a coarse texture and tends to appear as a solid wall of leaves. Lighten up their heaviness with the movement of grasses like little bluestem cultivars, Indian Steel switchgrass, and blue fescue. They can also pair beautifully with delicate shrubs like basket willow, stephanandra, and Grefsheim spirea. For a zippy combination, try purple-leaved redbuds with gold falsecypress or yellow juniper. The laciness and bright needles of the evergreens bring a bounce of energy to the vignette.

Make an even bigger statement with a large shade tree like Riversii beech. This medium-sized shade tree offers a huge punch of purple color all season long, deepening to purple-tinged green in August. Plant them thoughtfully as they do best in moist well-drained soils in full sun. Purple beech can also come in pillar forms for smaller spaces. Dawyck Purple and Rohanii are narrow columnar cultivars that provide purple exclamation points in the garden. There are even a few weeping forms, including Purple Fountains that also stays narrow. Because these are big dramatic specimens, underplant with shrubs to create a harmonious composition. Beech leaves have a medium-coarse texture and tend to tremble in any breeze, giving an impression of movement despite their size. Stiff silvery or golden evergreens can be a good foil for their fluttering foliage. To play off that tendency towards movement, try grasses like Japanese silver grass, Blonde Ambition side oats grama, or switch grass.

If your site’s soils won’t support a beech tree, there are also purple-leaved crabapples. These disease resistant selections love full blazing sun and can be surprisingly drought tolerant once established. Look for Profusion, Royal Raindrops, Purple Prince, and Prairifire, among others.

Blending into a Shrub Display

We have purple foliage options for every layer of the garden, but one of the most impactful choices is shrubs. They can provide an intriguing rhythm in a shrub border or highlight a foundation. Dark and mysterious, purple shrubs can be loose and flowing or tightly sheared, depending on the design demands.