The same purple looks stunning with a pale, cream yellow - Ipomoea batatas 'Blackie' goes beautifully with Coreopsis 'Moonbeam'. Blackie also looks great in my planter with coral colored verbena, lovely with the pale pink, barely opened flower heads of sedum, and absolutely stunning when paired with its sister, Ipomoea batatas 'Margarita.' In fact, I have yet to find a place where Blackie doesn't look spectacular.
Not that I have finished with pale, pastel gardens. I have a pathway lined with silver foliage plants punctuated with pale, cream yellow and pink. It would look washed out if it weren't for the deep purple heliotrope and the paler purple of the lavender that gives it some depth.
Many people seem to regard purple with suspicion. Perhaps it stems from ancient days when purple was a color reserved for royalty. Purple dye was very scarce and so the punishment for commoners caught wearing it was death - which would make me highly suspicious of purple, too. Purple is also often associated with mourning. Widows wore black, and when they were finally emerging from deep grief they could put on something purple to 'lighten up." It's a color that many people, if asked, will say they hate.
But how many of those same people grow purple irises? Or lavender, liatris, pansies and violets? Or lilacs? How many of them grow flowers that are called "blue" when in actuality they are some shade of purple - such as the so-called blue tulips and roses. (There are no blue tulips or roses, despite the fact that some of plants bear that color in their names.) The tulip at right is allegedly the bluest of all tulips. What color would you say it is?
Pansies and violets are often described as purple - although usually they are called "velvety purple" - but the rest of these flowers are called by other color names - lavender, lilac, violet, or blue. Even purple-haters seem to find that acceptable.
That's because purple in the garden is a whole different ball game than purple in the closet or on the walls. Where in decor and clothing it can make one look sallow or depressing, in the garden it only works to make other flowers look better. Like silver foliage, and to a lesser extent, white flowers, it mediates between plants whose colors might otherwise war with each other, and helps to create a pleasing whole. It cools down hot colors, and then turns around and brightens up the pale ones.
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