Purple heart, or Tradescantia pallia, is a trailing perennial that is completely purple. This evergreen perennial is native to north-eastern Mexico, from Yucatan to Tamaulipas. Here in Sydney, it is grown as an ornamental in many gardens for its deep purple colour that provides a good contrast to the surrounding greenery, along with the fact that it has proved itself to be a tough plant in the conditions that Sydney throws at it. The common name of purple heart is self explanatory as it is purple in colour. The meaning of the binomial name, Tradescantia pallida is as follows:

• Tradescantia-named after John Tradescant, who was an English gardener.
• Pallida-the Latin word for pale, which refers to the original colour of the leaves.

The leaves are a dark purple colour, up to seventeen centimetres long. They are arranged alternately on the fleshy stems that are hairy. The leaves form a sheath around the stem, where they are attached. The stems themselves are quite fragile and easily break if brushed past too hard.

The flowers that appear in summer are pink to a paler purple than the leaves. The stamens are bright yellow in colour. Appearing at the end of the stems, the flowers have three petals.

To get the best results with purple heart, grow it in full sun and mass plant it in garden beds to get the full impact of the purple colour against the green of other plants in the garden.

Purple heart is a drought tolerant plant that is happy with neglect, according to on thing I read. But. All plants need water to survive, just like we do. So if you haven’t had rain or watered your garden for a while, then give your purple heart some water and it will thank you.

Purple heart is easy to propagate. All it needs is to take any part of the plant that has a node on the bottom-this needs to be put into the soil and new roots will grow into the soil from there. Seed can also be used, but isn’t a frequently available option.

Again, this is a plant that I would have in my garden, that seems to have a need to get bigger hourly some days, just for the number of plants I’d like in it! I love it for the contrast of the colour against the rest of the garden and that is why it would have a home in my mythical garden.