The colour purple

If you love purple, plant it now for decadent, bold borders, says Hazel Sillver, as she explains the best combinations when using this stunning colour in your borders

- Hazel Sillver

WHEN I am an old woman I shall wear purple,’ Jenny Joseph promised in her poem Warning. ‘I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired, And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells, And run my stick along the public railings.’ Applying this to gardeners, it might read: ‘When I am old I shall grow purple.’

Of course, the connotation is that purple is such a frowned-upon colour, we can only enjoy it when we no longer care what people think. But never mind the neighbours’ raised eyebrows – to forgo purple is to miss out on the many glorious shades within its spectrum.

Marrying red and blue, purple encompasses velvety damson and fiery magenta, through to midnight indigo. All these create impact in the border, while pastel purples offer softness.

A startling colour

The late Christopher Lloyd, who is known for his clever use of colour at Great Dixter in East Sussex, loved magenta (which he defined as ‘purple with a strong dash of red admixed’). ‘It is quite a startling colour and therefore has many enemies,’ he wrote in his book Colour for Adventurous Gardeners. Ignoring the colour-phobes, he planted it with abandon: ‘Don’t feel you have to be subtle in your use of magenta,’ he added.

However, when it came to darker purples, he was wary: ‘An all-purple border, unless relieved with touches of some other colour, is a mistake, especially in Britain, when we so often cower beneath grey skies.’ Contrast is vital, he said. Buddleja davidii ‘Black Knight’, for instance, is fabulous beside fiery-orange or rich-mauve plants.

Personal taste