The Color Purple —

One of our largest showy purple shrubs is smokebush. Older cultivars can top out around 15 feet, although new shorter varieties allow us to incorporate this tough plant from the front of the border to a featured corner. Smokebush’s fluffy pink flowers that look like puffs of smoke are a charming added bonus. Because smokebush leaves are held on a long stem or petiole, they flutter in the briefest of breezes. This gives a lightness to the plant and allows you to use stiffer shrubs and perennials as a foil to its dancing leaves.

Purple-leaved elderberries offer a full sun alternative to Japanese maples with their lacy fine-cut foliage. You get all the delicate texture with a wet-tolerant, fastgrowing, deep wine-purple color. These elderberries bloom pink in large flat clustered flowers. They usually do not bear fruit, so they can be planted along walks and patios with little fear of messiness. Elderberry is a vigorous grower that may need cutting back every few years to keep it in check. Try it with coarse tall perennials like Rudbeckia maxima, Gateway Joe Pye weed, and queen of the prairie for a dynamic combination that will likely hide the neighbors.

For four-season fabulousness, try ninebarks. Their purple foliage is spangled in small clusters of pinkish-white flowers in spring, summer brings non-stop richly hued leaves, then reddish-bronze fall color and shreddy bark for winter interest. Happy in full sun to part shade and drought tolerant once established, ninebarks have fast become popular for residential and commercial sites. There is a range of sizes from Little Devil’s 3 to 4 feet up to Diablo’s 8 to 10 feet. Ninebarks naturally have a fountainy arching shape that pairs beautifully with upright grasses like big bluestem cultivars, switchgrass cultivars, and Karl Foerster feather reed grass. Its soft shape can also be dynamic with long-blooming perennials like echinacea, rudbeckia, and calamint.

An heirloom shrub that has been revitalized with new breeding, weigela offers many purple-leaved cultivars that also feature showy white or deep pink tubular