Is it a tamarisk?

Steragram,
That's it although mine is a brighter purple. No one at the beach knew what it was and I've never seen one before as long as I've gone to the NC/SC coast. Thank you so much. I've tried and tried to look on the internet for it.

:)) Yes they are usually much lighter pink than that.

Are they really that invasive? Also, are they always sort of straggly looking? When we move to the beach, I was thinking of planting them if not.

Out of curiosity I,ve been surfing, there are a lot of varieties of Tamarix and if you do images something similar comes up but I couldn't find its proper name

I think mine is tamarix ramosissima (salt cedar). After Steragram posted I started researching and that's what I think it is.

It is definitely an invasive species. Here is what I found on a search for them in Arizona: Tamarisks are extremely invasive in riparian communities, often nearly completely replacing native vegetation with impenetrable thickets. They are extremely competitive against native vegetation because they are aggressive usurpers of water. They also sequester salt in their foliage, and where flooding does not flush out soil salts the leaf litter increases the salinity of soil surfaces. Dense stands of saltcedars support lower biodiversity than the natural communities they displace.

I think thats probable Debart, and is it invasive?

Thanks to all the responses. I'm definitely taking this off my list of wants when I move to the coast.

Interesting - I don't think they are invasive in the UK - unless its a different variety from what we have over here.
It was surprising to read yesterday that honeysuckle is an invasive pest in parts of the USA -we should be careful before we import things! (Japanese knotweed, rhododendron ponticum, rabbits in Australia etc...)