Purple Bed

The S.O really likes the color purple. His enthusiasm for plants begins at things he can eat and ends at things that are purple. His only other sweet spot is purple foliage plants with red flowers. Any other flower color or plant attribute do nothing for him. Last year when I bought my coveted Shagbark Maple, we started a new garden bed. When we started the bed my SO suggested we fill it with purple stuff. I agreed to it, I mean, why not have a garden bed devoted to a single color. It's an interesting design challenge.
Have I stuck to a single color? Almost. I planted a dwarf forsythia so there is a pop of yellow in early spring and a few annuals in other colors as fillers.

Dwarf Forsythia in the background Globularia cordifolia in the foreground awaiting planting

For purple, I have put in some bulbs and perennials that I will be adding to once I see what works and what doesn't. There are crocuses from when that Garden bed was lawn, most of them made the transition, a few couldn't handle the mulch layer. I want some more and they are really inexpensive. I dropped in some irises a while ago that I got from a coworker, one of them is red, and the rest purple and I didn't keep good track of which was which. They also haven't appeared yet this spring.  We'll see what happens with those. there are purple gladiolus I just planted and have already forgotten where. My ability to remember where I plant bulbs is terrible. For some more purple I planted two "Raven" Penstemon, a "Caradonna" Salvia, and a purple delphinium. There will be more pictures as the season progresses.

Just planted. I will be adding to this I'm sure

I think I'm going to go get a perennial verbena, that would be a nice low plant for that bed. Maybe some phlox too.

My maple, just starting to leaf out

 Also since there is a tree, I will need to plant more shade plants over time. Oh tragedy I sigh, as I already have a short list of epimediums and purple foliage shade plants. I am a plant addict, what can I say.