Bushes with purple flowers add a special grace to a landscape. The strong, vibrant purple color can be enjoyed throughout the season and blends well with lavender, orchid, lilac, violet, white, blue, pink and looks particularly striking mixed with green and white variegated foliage on shrubs, groundcovers and evergreens and vines.

Several of these flowering shrubs are native plants, which are more naturally insect resistant, salt tolerant and have natural disease resistance. Carolina Rhododendron bloom colors include rose and lilac-rose. Catawba Rhododendrons are among the hardiest Rhododendrons and have a beautiful range of bloom colors including lavender and purple. Pinxterbloom Azalea is another good native naturalizing deciduous Azalea.

Europe and Asia have given American gardeners numerous lovely purple flowering shrubs that include Lilacs of many types, not just the common lilacs that we remember from our Grandmother's garden. The Lilac genus offers a large variety of heights, bloom times and flower colors. Japanese Pieris, in the Azalea / Rhododendron family, resemble Lily of the Valley flowers. The Little Girls Series of hybrid Magnolias in shades of purples and reds will mature to only 15-20'.

What may be confusing or surprising about this list of purple flowering shrubs are the pictures with pink and blue flowers. In Bigleaf Hydranges  the color of the flower is determined by the pH of the soil.  Acidic soil (pH 5-5.8) will produce blue and purple flowers and alkaline soils (pH 6-7) will flower pink. Also consider Blood-on-the-snow Hydrangea and Tea of Heaven, which is extremely hardy.

To view learn more about purple flowering shrubs, please visit Virtual Plant Tags.