10 Ways to Use Deep Purple Foliage in Your Garden
Add depth to small gardens and drama to planting beds with dark tones
Lauren Dunec Hoang
14 October 2016
Houzz Editor; landscape designer and former garden editor for Sunset Magazine and in-house designer for Sunset's Editorial Test Garden. Her garden designs have been featured in the Sunset Western Garden Book of Landscaping, Sunset Western Garden Book of Easy-Care Plantings (cover), Inhabitat, and POPSUGAR.
Houzz Editor; landscape designer and former garden editor for Sunset Magazine and... More
Dark, moody and dramatic, purple can be a versatile tool in garden design. In the same way that a pool beneath a shady tree canopy gives you a sense of cold water before you’ve touched the surface, dark purple foliage can have a visually cooling effect in a landscape. The leaves absorb light and enhance the shadows of a garden. Conversely, planted amid a sea of green, purple foliage activates a garden bed as an eye-catching focal point. Whatever effect you’d like to achieve, here are 10 ways to incorporate dark purple hues in your garden.
1. Add garden depth. Dark foliage visually falls to the back of a garden bed or series of containers, while brighter greens and white flowers spring forward. Use this to your advantage in a small garden or urban roof terrace. Here, containers spilling over with a mix of foliage are interesting in their own right, but the addition of purple coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides, USDA zones 10 to 11; find your zone) adds depth to the New York City garden and makes the walled-in space feel less flat.
2. Showcase dark foliage as living art. Many dark-leaved plants have an unusual beauty. Examples include the nearly translucent burgundy leaves of ‘Royal Purple’ smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’, zones 4 to 8) and the delicate plum foliage of Japanese maple (Acer palmatum cvs., zones 5 to 8), like the one shown here. Display their rich colors and interesting leaf forms against the backdrop of rusted metal walls, pale fences or spilling over large boulders.
3. Enhance shadows in the landscape. Dark foliage planted at the edges of a landscape makes the backdrop recede into shadow. Fences, walls and unwanted views seem to disappear. In this San Francisco garden, the purple, shadowy foliage colors at the landscape edges screen adjacent buildings and blur the garden’s boundaries.
‘Krauter Vesuvius’ plum trees (Prunus cerasifera ‘Krauter Vesuvius’)
4. Cool down a courtyard. Purple-leaved foliage visually cools a gravel courtyard by more than just the shade it casts. In hot summer climates, use dark-leaved shade trees such as purple-leaved plums (Prunus cerasifera, zones 4 to 9), copper beech (Fagus sylvatica f. purpurea, zones 4 to 7) and purple cootamundra wattle (Acacia baileyana ‘Purpurea’, zones 8 to 10) to create shade for cool, inviting retreats.
4. Cool down a courtyard. Purple-leaved foliage visually cools a gravel courtyard by more than just the shade it casts. In hot summer climates, use dark-leaved shade trees such as purple-leaved plums (Prunus cerasifera, zones 4 to 9), copper beech (Fagus sylvatica f. purpurea, zones 4 to 7) and purple cootamundra wattle (Acacia baileyana ‘Purpurea’, zones 8 to 10) to create shade for cool, inviting retreats.
5. Create a dark backdrop to highlight perennial flowers. Planting dark foliage and bright or pastel blooms in close proximity can have a dramatic effect in containers or in planting beds. Here, the petals of ‘Mardi Gras’ sneezeweed (Helenium ‘Mardi Gras’, zones 3 to 9) glow like embers against a dark backdrop of purple-leaved Diabolo ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Monlo’, zones 2 to 7).
6. Showcase as a focal point. Plant a single specimen with dark purple foliage amid a primarily green planting bed, and it will act like a punctuation mark in the design. Showy purple shrubs, such as cascading Purple Pixie fringe flower (Loropetalum chinense ‘Peack’, zones 7 to 9), particularly stand out when planted in a large container set into the planting bed. Here, a deep burgundy Japanese maple acts as the central focus of an Asian-inspired garden in Toronto.
7. Bring contrast to garden beds. Use dark-leaved plants as a rich counterpoint to bright green and pale silver foliage placed nearby. Here, bronze New Zealand flax (Phormium sp., zones 8 to 10) and purple-leaved plums contrast with billowing, light green maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis, zones 5 to 9) and silvery coast rosemary (Westringia fruticosa, zones 9 to 10).
8. Plant a dark leafy screen. Most hedge plants are medium green — think Podocarpus, Ligustrum and Pittosporum. Mix it up with an unexpected screen of purple Florida hopbush (Dodonaea viscosa ‘Purpurea’, zones 8 to 11). The bronze, waxy foliage creates a striking backdrop for bedding plants, and coordinates well with warm mahogany tones in buildings.
9. Deepen hot-colored flower beds. Fiery late-summer and fall flower beds or containers can tend toward garish without the balance of cooling swaths of dark foliage. Here, a container of ‘Blackie’ sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas ‘Blackie’, zones 9 to 11) complements the golden yellow blooms of lantana. In the back of the bed, we have another hit of dark foliage with the maroon leaves of coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides, zones 10 to 11).
10. Plant en masse for an modern look. Edgy and unexpected, dark foliage pairs well with contemporary architecture. For the biggest impact, plant a single species of a dark-leaved plant en masse. Here, low-growing black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’, zones 5 to 10) fills in the stark concrete planters with dark waves of grasslike foliage.
Learn how to avoid foliage monotony
See more ways to design with beautiful foliage
Learn how to avoid foliage monotony
See more ways to design with beautiful foliage
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Unfortunately, studies are showing purple-leaved cultivars are almost entirely unrecognizable and unusable for pollinators and insects who use the straight species as a host plant. It's something to consider as we design landscapes attractive to us and other species.