ph: 361-935-1556
nancyk
August 13, 2021
by Charlie Neumeyer/Victoria County Master Gardener
Edited by Suzanne LaBrecque/Victoria County Master Gardener
Editor’s note: Victoria County Master Gardeners will feature “A Color for the Month” as part of a 2021 series. August is purple. Watch the colors change in Gardeners’ Dirt each month.
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY VICTORIA COUNTY MASTER GARDENER CHARLIE NEUMEYER
I consider this 'Amistad' Sage the true puruple color. This bushy sage forms a nice clump and is perennial.
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY VICTORIA COUNTY MASTER GARDENER CHARLIE NEUMEYER
This 'Plum Perfect' Rose is on the red side of the purple spectrum. It is one of the newer varieties of purple roses and was developed by Jackson and Perkins.
For more gardening tips and information, visit vcmga.org or the Victoria County Master Gardener Association Facebook page.
The Gardeners’ Dirt is written by members of the Victoria County Master Gardener Association, an educational outreach of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension – Victoria County. Mail your questions in care of the Advocate, P.O. Box 1518, Victoria, TX 77901 or vcmga@vicad.com.
When Annabeth and I began thinking about putting in our garden, we decided to keep the color scheme fairly simple. We chose a triadic scheme of red, yellow and purple. How hard could that be?
Your purple is my blue
Reds were fairly easy to sort through. True yellow flowers were a little more difficult to find.
But purple? In my eye, many of the plants that have purple in their names are more in the blue family.
According to Wikipedia, purple “refers to any variety of colors with hue between red and blue ... with purples closer to red and violets closer to blue.” So, on the color wheel, my eye sees purple on the red side of the spectrum as opposed to the violets on the blue side.
Purple trees
I didn’t think there were many trees in our area that bloomed purple, or shades thereof, but a quick search of Aggie Horticulture listed several. The vitex, or chaste tree, blooms in the summer and has purplish-blue blossoms. The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension notes that while the tree is not native, it has naturalized in our state and is a Superstar.
Another tree that can have light violet flowers is the Texas desert willow. According to the Aggie Horticulture site, this tree is native to “West Texas and the Edwards Plateau,” and blooming depends on rainfall. And don’t forget crape myrtles. I have two Catawbas, and they are heavy mid-summer bloomers with a nice purple flower.
Purple shrubs
Moving down the size scale, Texas sage or cenizo is a native plant that can take the heat and dry weather. The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension notes that it is sometimes called a “barometer bush” because flowering is triggered by humidity or high soil moisture after rains.
A small shrub that I recently discovered is the shrubby purple skullcap (Scutellaria wrightii). Native to Mexico and Texas, this purple bloomer forms a small mound about a foot high and wide and blooms early spring through summer.
A few nonnatives that are popular locally are duranta, some butterfly bushes (Buddleia), and dark knight caryopteris. Although the flowers are not noteworthy, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center describes the American beautyberry as having ”clusters of glossy, iridescent-purple fruit which hug the branches in the fall and winter.”
Salvia/sage
The salvia family is huge and there are multiple species that have purple-ish blossoms. One of the most common is Henry Duelberg salvia. It is a Texas Superstar and a prolific bloomer all summer long. It is super easy to grow, but spreads rapidly.
Another Texas Superstar sage is Mexican bush sage. This perennial has what I consider to be a true purple blossom. The plant forms huge clumps and is not invasive.
A truer purple salvia is the amistad. Keith Hansen, posting to the East Texas Gardening site, says that the blooms have the wow factor — “rich purple flowers popping out of almost black calyces.” I have some of these in my garden and they truly are purple. They form a controllable clump and can get to be 4 feet tall. Purple salvias are numerous, and a quick search of the internet will show you the variety of purple sages that are available.
Various
Other plants that have purple cultivars include irises — Dutch, Siberian, and bearded are the most commonly grown locally. If you are looking for a vine, wisteria is a large-scale vine that grows well in this area. There are several purple roses on the market also. I have one cultivar named plum perfect. It has pinkish-purple flowers and blooms freely.
As Wikipedia notes, there are “numerous variations of the color purple.” So, if you are picky about your purple when you are selecting plants, you may have to choose which side of the spectrum you favor.
ph: 361-935-1556
nancyk