This small growing lavender is one to position where you can easily pause to squeeze the flowers and stems, releasing the soothing, true lavender fragrance. The classy combination of blue-grey foliage and violet flowers is most appealing, whether on its own or grouped with other silver, grey, violet and blue colours. Among interesting flowers to combine with Lavender ‘Violet Intrigue’ are the new, dwarf and exceptionally free flowering Salvia ‘Marcus’, with dark purple-blue flowers, and the sweetly scented Heliotrope ‘Violet Marine’. Carrying on the fragrant idea, ‘Violet Intrigue’ could also be grown happily with sweet smelling herbs such as lemon balm, lemon scented Pelargonium crispum (available in both plain green and a gold and green variegated foliage form) and pot marjoram which is pretty to look at and refreshingly fragrant when the leaves are rubbed.

A backdrop of the late summer flowering perennial Echinacea ‘Kim’s Knee High’, which has the most beautiful deep pink daisies surrounding a black central cone, is another bright idea for combining with this gorgeous lavender. Because ‘Violet Intrigue’ likes very good drainage it grows happily in the pure sand of beach gardens where it is seen at times looking enchanting among blue-grey succulents and a piece of decorative driftwood gathered from the beach.