Why these gardeners are sharing their purple planting passions

After writing about plants with purple flowers, two gardeners shared their purple horticultural passions.

For Greg Fitze, who gardens in Long Beach, it’s false heather. “This plant is extremely low maintenance,” he writes. “It is slow-growing and much ignored, needing little water. It soldiers on in a narrow strip on the south side of our garage. It deserves better.” His last observation is appropriate, since false heather can easily be missed unless it is prominently displayed where you can regularly appreciate it, as on either side of a pathway that leads from the street to your front door.

Upon first setting eyes on false heather (Cuphea hyssopifolia), you might just fall in love with it. Delicate purple, white, or lavender-pink flowers are embedded among tiny, glistening leaves. Alth