purple

Bright purple and black balloons brought the shop to life, adding a festive touch to its faded paint and well-worn barber chairs.

Surrounded by rows of unsold Pinot Noir grapes in late August, Steve Dutton brushed away the hanging leaves to reveal the dark purple grapes.

“What you must realize,” he wrote to his first wife, Mary, “is that once I begin a story you become a character, not a person; Monet’s haystacks didn’t complain that they weren’t really purple.”

Then up, up, and up, past the markets, clothing boutiques, fix-it shops, the swirling schools of motor scooters and all those purple jacaranda trees, starting their seasonal bloom.

The treed “Woodland Garden” to the west, with black tupelo and swamp white oaks, gives way to a “Perennial Meadow,” whose asters, purple beebalms and orange butterfly weed were chosen for their chromatic effect.