An Ode to Purple

Purple is my favorite color in the garden, any shade from blue-violet to magenta.

I wish I knew the name of this pansy cultivar.
 

It's not really apparent in the picture below, but the flowers and leaves of Early Blue Violet (Viola palmata) look a lot like Bird's Foot Violet, although the flowers don't have the striking two-toned coloration of its cousin. However, rather than liking poor sand like Bird's Foot Violet, it loves wet clay subsoil.
 

We didn't have the common blue violet growing on our farm when we moved in, just Viola palmata and Marsh Violets. Marsh Violet flowers aren't very big but the plants flower a lot for their tiny size and come in shades of white to blue to violet-blue to this purple.
 

This plant needs no introduction. We grow ours as a shrub and mow around it to keep it under control. Unfortunately the flowers get frozen about every other year.
 

 

The Phlox divarcata in the middle is 'Louisiana'; the one on the left is 'London Grove Blue' and the one on the right 'Clouds of Perfume'.
 

 

Homestead Purple started blooming here in March, Blue Princess (the lighter one) in April, and both are still producing flushes of bloom in July.
 

 

View of year-old planting on the east side of the house with verbena and woodland phlox in bloom, to vegetable garden on the right, the big perennial bed (barely visible in this shot) to the left, and one of our horse pastures in the distance.