Purple Flowers: Four Top Blooms for Gardening in the Royal Hue

Purple is the color of mystery and the color of royalty. A popular color in wedding bouquets, Mother's Day bouquets and in gardens, purple adds a pop of noticeable color to any garden setting. Get the right flowers going and you can have a fragrant garden with some edible purple flowers and some incredible purple blooms to bundle up and give to friends.

Sweet Violet - Viola odorata

Also known as the Sweet Violet or the English Violet, Viola odorata comes in many colors, but is best known for its purple, purple-white and indigo flowers. This plant should be grown in a sunny place with well-drained soil. The flowers and leaves of the Sweet violet are edible, though you should always be careful to get an expert identification on a plant before eating it.

Wild Rose - Rosa acicularis

Wild roses are fragrant shrubs with flowers that come in purple, pink and white. The flowers are edible and the hips are high in vitamin C. Many varieties of flowers are called wild roses due to their blooms' resemblance to roses, so you must make sure you get the correct kind of flower before eating it. Wild roses often need to be pruned back to keep them in check, but are generally easy to grow in well-drained soil that doesn't get too boggy.

Iris - Iridaceae

The iris is a slim, green plant with tissue-paper like petals. Though most irises have purple flowers, iris flowers can also be found in other colors like white and yellow. The range of purple hues available in Iris flowers makes this flower type a particularly versatile choice for gardeners who want an exact shade of purple. Irises are easy to grow in a sunny place with good soil drainage.

Lilacs - Syringa

Lilacs are extremely fragrant flowers that come in a few colors, like blue, pink and white, but most importantly, purple. The main problem with the breathtakingly fragrant lilac is that the blooms only stay for about two weeks, usually either in the spring or summer. Staggering the planting of different types of lilacs can give the effect of a longer lilac blooming season. Deep-rooted lilacs do best in well-drained soil, and can tolerate periods of drought with maintenance watering. Overwatering will kill a lilac plant.

Gathering the right color of flowers for your garden does require some attention to detail. For purple flowering plants with multiple varieties, do some research to make sure you get the purple flowered variety when you buy in the store. This is somewhat difficult to do for sure if you start with seeds, but if you buy a purple flowered plant from the garden shop to transplant into your garden, you can be sure your purple blooms were the shade you desired.

References:

British Colombia Outdoor Wilderness Guide
Identify Purple Wildflowers
Edible of the Month: Violets