Years ago the director of horticulture of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., shared a plant with me that had large purple flowers and was called Princess Flower. It thrived, but in my ...

Princess flower is an evergreen shrub with an almost unpronounceable name, Tibouchina urvilleana. The brilliant purple plant flowers from late spring into winter, and is a showstopper in the garden.

The princess flower is so perfectly named, for the plant loads up with uncountable blossoms of royal purple making it unchallenged as the most beautiful plant in the late summer and fall garden.