Perfect pink and purple plant combinations

 Perfect pink and purple plant 

Put old color favorites — pinks and purples — to work in your flowerbeds with these new-style garden mixes.

1. Keep it the same

Consistency of plant type can also provide diversity in color, as shown by this abundant pairing of different shades of hydrangeas. From pale pink to rich salmon and pale purple, the same group offers a subdued and interesting rainbow of pastel colors.

2. Believe in color clusters

Another way to combine colors is to group similar hues in alternating blocks of plants. Here a bouquet changes from purple and pink in the foreground - stonecrop and dianthus - to purple wild indigo, then foxglove in a deep shade of fuchsia in the background.

3. Repeat the exercise

Among these evergreens, dianthus, catmint, and foxglove are lively and vigorous choices that gradually fill the garden space. The design is replicated down the length of the bed, which is a great way to present different blooms while maintaining a two-color combination.

4. Change the colors

Petunias are a garden favorite, and for good reason: they're reliable flowers that can withstand a variety of conditions and climates. Here, waves of pink and purple petunias line a path, providing a low-growing landscape.

5. Use color for drama

Go big, go bold: that's the strategy in this seductive mix of pink peony, purple iris, and fuchsia bush rose. Plants that offer large amounts of flowers or lots of colors do the job of creating a focal point, especially in a large flower arrangement.

6. Be fearless with flowers

Pink and purple is a beloved garden combination, but it can get boring in a hurry, especially with monotonous plants and ho-hum foliage. Now is the time to spice up a garden bed with a variety of flowering styles, such as these large purple-blooming clematis contrasted with vertical spikes of pink lupins.

7. Stick to tradition

Pink and purple are a classic cottage garden combination. In this case, the soft shades and beautiful flowers of California poppies and anemones will not fail in any kind of growth and appearance.

8. Embrace greenery

Flowering plants are a natural choice for adding color to a garden but don't overlook growers who offer more foliage than flowers. There is a trade-off in texture and variety, with purple mint's distinctive purple leaves subtly contrasting with pink roses, fuchsia gadflies, and purple perennial geraniums.

9. Make purple the boss

There is no need to maintain equality when combining colors in the garden. Indeed, like the broad swaths of purple larkspur in this bed, lending a hand over a hue, the intermittent bursts of pink poppies are even more impactful.

10. Try unexpected shades

Pastel shades of pinks and purples have long pleased the flower crowd, but the more unusual ends of the color spectrum show garden potential. Here, the neon pink flowers of primrose pick up the hybrid green-purple leaves of flowering cabbage; Warm hues are softened by pale shades of Twinspur and Osteospermum.

11. Go casual

Astilbes — a shade favorite — help the gardener by offering nearly limitless color options in the pink-purple spectrum. In this wandering woodland bed, there's no distinguishable pattern to the colors, but the random placement of the plants works because the hues — from pale pink to deep fuchsia — complement each other.

12. Stick to the rules

Pinks and purples make an exciting display in this lush casual garden. But while there's no set order to the plantings, the flowerbed does rely on tried-and-true horticultural rules: short plants in front, similar varieties planted in clusters. This is a garden that favors the specimen collector - there are no fewer than eight plants including bachelor's buttons, cosmos, cleome, coneflower, verbena, rose mallow, ageratum, and zinnia.

13. Take center stage

This delightful mix of old garden favorites offers enough blooms to please any gardener. What it does even better is using large groupings of single species — clematis above the arbor, delphiniums in the back, hollyhocks closer to the front — to draw attention to exotic blooms.