Container Gardening Tips

Purple Flowers for Outdoor Garden Planters

Purple is the ideal color for accent plants in groupings of garden planters planted with other colors such as pinks, reds, yellows and oranges. You’ll find an excellent selection of purple flowering annuals, perennials and herbs for most growing conditions.

Many herbs have purple flowers

Borage is a full sun to partial shade plant that will produce purple and lavender flowers for your planters. This plant also produces a variety of other colored flowers as well. If you live in zones six through ten this plant is a great outdoor plant for your garden. The Borage plant blooms in midsummer providing a great display.

Hyssop is a plant for full sun that grows well in planters in grow zones six through nine, although experienced gardeners will have success in other areas. This is a violet, violet-blue colored flower that adds color to your garden from the month of June through late August.

Mint is a common herb that produce flowers, pink or purple. Mint is easily grown in zones five through nine and is found blooming from early July through the end of August. Mint can be grown in full sun or in partial shade, only requiring a few hours of sun a day for a healthy plant. Planted in the garden, mint can become invasive, so it is an ideal plant to keep under control in beautiful terracotta planters.

Sage is another purple-flowered herb that blooms in the early spring months as the weather starts to warm. Sage is easily grown outdoors in zones four through eight and in other areas where gardeners bring in their plants during the very high and low temperature swings. This is a full sun plant that does well in all types of planters, including window planters, in the garden or on a balcony in the full sun.

Here’s a selection of flowers in many shades of purple to grow in garden planters:

• Ageratum ‘Blue Horizon’
• Phlox paniculata
• Campanula patula
• Campanula lactiflora
• Delphinium ‘Mighty Atom’
• Iris unguicularis
• Lavandula pedunculata ‘James Compton’
• Allium hollanicum ‘Purple Sensation’
• Aster ‘Little Carlow’
• Verbena bonariensis
• Clematis Victoria’
• Eupatorium purpureum ‘Atropurpureum’
• Salvia superba
• Centaurea montana
• Centaurea cyanus ‘Blue Diadem’
• Forget-me-not
• Vinca minor