gbbd: pretty purple

For this Gar­den Blog­gers’ Bloom Day I’ve picked some pre­dom­i­nantly pur­ple spring-flowering plants that are start­ing to do their thing in my gar­den. All but one of these are Cal­i­for­nia (or Baja Cal­i­for­nia) natives, and all would be seri­ously water-wise choices for the gar­den. Some would even make it through an entire sum­mer with­out water, though they’d look just a lit­tle bet­ter with a sip once or twice a month.

blue-eyed-grass-closeup

blue-eyed-grass-with-chard-and-heliotrope

Blue-eyed grass (Sisy­rinchium bel­lum): What a great name for a great plant. This iris rel­a­tive is happy coex­ist­ing in a moderately-watered gar­den with other plants, though they can stand drought. Here they are liv­ing along­side some chard and heliotrope.

bluedicks

bluedicks-2

Blue dicks (Dich­e­lostemma cap­i­ta­tum) are com­mon here near the coast and are one of our reli­able signs that it’s spring. They self-sow and spread around the gar­den, but not obnoxiously.

salvia-mellifera

Black sage (Salvia mel­lif­era) is one of the local canyon plants that’s earned a place in the gar­den. In life the flow­ers are a slightly stronger pale mauve color than here in the photo. It’s just begin­ning to come into flower and should be a lit­tle more intense in a cou­ple weeks. Though not one of the “look at me” sages, it’s still qui­etly beautiful.

verbena-lilacina

verbena-lilacina-2

Ver­bena lilacina orig­i­nates in Baja. The plant shown here is just get­ting started. It should flower much of the year and require very lit­tle sum­mer water.

morea-tripetala

This one’s maybe closer to blue than pur­ple, the South African bulb Morea tripetala. I stuck it in a really dry spot, and it’s now prob­a­bly just bloom­ing on the reserves in the bulb. We’ll see how well it does after a sea­son of tough love in the garden.

penstemon-margarita

And with the last photo we come back to Cal­i­for­nia with the jus­ti­fi­ably ever-popular Pen­ste­mon Mar­garita BOP (some­times sold as Pen­ste­mon het­ero­phyl­lus ‘Mar­garita BOP’). The flow­ers are a wild mix of blue and magenta pink, giv­ing the over­all impres­sion of pur­ple. The open tubu­lar flow­ers have some­thing of the look of a fox­glove which would require a cer­tain amount of water, but this pen­ste­mon actu­ally does just fine with almost no added water.

Thanks to May Dreams Gar­dens for host­ing Gar­den Blog­gers’ Bloom Day. Check out the page with glimpses into what’s bloom­ing all around the world.

March 15 2009 06:24 am | Categories: art • gardening • plant profiles | Tags: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

12 Responses to “gbbd: pretty purple”

  1. Helen Yoest @ Gardening With Confidence on 15 Mar 2009 at 8:27 am #

    Pur­ple is good. Nice show­ing. Happy bloom day!

  2. Nell Jean -- seedscatterer on 15 Mar 2009 at 10:14 am #

    Blue eyed grass is one of my fav plants. Mine, native here, came from pasture’s edge sev­eral years ago.

  3. Linda Lehmusvirta on 15 Mar 2009 at 10:18 am #

    Beau­ti­ful pho­tographs! My blue-eyed grass is still a few days from bloom­ing. I must try the Morea; I bet it would work in Austin.

  4. Greg on 15 Mar 2009 at 11:19 am #

    I’ll need to get me some of that blue-eyed grass some­day. I’ve been a fan for a while.

    I had no idea about Gar­den Blog­gers Bloom Day, but I found some spring flow­ers this morn­ing, so it appears I have acci­den­tally par­tic­i­pated, so I’ll surf on over! Thanks for the tip.

  5. Karen - An Artist's Garden on 15 Mar 2009 at 2:26 pm #

    What a won­der­fully airy feel these images have, lovely
    K

  6. Lynn on 15 Mar 2009 at 4:08 pm #

    you’re awfully kind to show us just your pur­ple palette ;) They are beau­ti­ful, and espe­cially nice to know they’re (mostly) locals. And that’s one fan­tas­tic Penstemon!

  7. Signs in My Neighborhood « The Midnight Garden on 15 Mar 2009 at 5:43 pm #

    […] A lit­tle while later:   I just surfed over to Lost in the Land­scape, where James is fea­tur­ing a bevy of pur­ple beau­ties in his gar­den today (you should totally check […]

  8. Gayle Madwin on 15 Mar 2009 at 7:06 pm #

    Oh, a fel­low Cal­i­for­nia native plant gar­dener! I’m at the other end of the state, in the north­ern Sacra­mento Val­ley, but I’m grow­ing Pen­ste­mon het­ero­phyl­lus too. Now, if only mine would bloom!

  9. Town Mouse on 15 Mar 2009 at 7:42 pm #

    This posts illus­trates nicely the dif­fer­ence between South­ern and Northern/Central CA. We have a blue-eyed grass or two, but the pen­ste­mon hasn’t even started think­ing about blossoms…I’d be envi­ous, but I know I just have to be patient. Thanks for sharing!

  10. Pam/Digging on 15 Mar 2009 at 9:26 pm #

    I like that black sage and the pen­ste­mon. You have a great selec­tion of purple-flowered natives this Bloom Day.

  11. Shirl on 16 Mar 2009 at 2:01 pm #

    Ah… I’m a fan of pur­ple and blues in the gar­den… pen­ste­mons too! Very nice blooms… Happy GBBD :-D

  12. Jean on 16 Mar 2009 at 6:17 pm #

    Lovely blooms, all of them. I too am a fan of blue-eyed grass. Some folks think they’re weeds but I think they’re great!

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