Once upon a time gardeners believed that flowers and herbs had more power if gathered by moonlight – especially if you planted them for spells and potions. Maybe this was because some plants are more fragrant at night, as they try to attract night flying moths and other insects.
Cool moist air also seems to ‘collect’ scents too. But mostly, I think, it’s because gardens can have a strange magic at night. Vivid colours are stronger in daylight. But other colours have a ghostly beauty that’s best seen at night…
‘Night gardens’ used to be known as ‘moon gardens’. These days, when most of us are at work during the day, it can be glorious to have a garden you can wander around at night. A little garden lighting, and you too can have some garden magic!
Moon Garden Trees:
Go for ones with stunning trunks, preferably pale dapples that almost glow in moonlight. Most of us rarely notice the beauty of tree trunks during the day. But at night they aware serene an sculptural. Some of my night time favourites are snow gums, especially ones that have been allowed to grow several trunks; any of the malaleucas, or paperbarks; strawberry guava, with the lower limbs trimmed back so you can see the twisted shape of the stems; silver birch; paper birch; Brazilian cherry, with it’s twisted dappled stems; smoke bush – once again, the multi stemmed ones can be the most lovely.
The Sheraton Cherry, or Prunus serrula, has a shiny red dappled trunk, especially stunning with spot might below it also the rich color can be seen. Other great trees for ‘moon gardens’ are open canopied trees, like jacarandas, where the moonlight can shine through the branches leaving silver dapples on the grass. Melia adzerach, the native white cedar, can also look stunning by moonlight.
Shrubs for Moonlight:
Many of the dark leafed shrubs like camellias are lost at night. They just merge into one thick shadow. Silver leafed plants, on the other hand, like silver Artemisia or wormwood or curry bush or English lavender – especially the white varieties – seem to reflect the moonlight, and shiny leaved sculptural plants like yuccas or Buddleia or Butterfly Bush can look amazing.
Midnight Flowers:
It’s the light, bright flowers that look glorious by moonlight- not just white ones, but pale colours that glow. Japanese anemones are fabulous; so are white and yellow hollyhocks, white echinacea, butterfly like gauras, pale bloomed wisterias, and dancing cosmos flowers.
Look for blooms that are most fragrant in the evening, too, like night scented jasmine or Jessamine, or wallflowers, orange blossom, mock orange blossom, coreopsis ‘Moonbeam’, sweet William, carnations, freesia, gardenias, white heliotrope with its fabulous vanilla scent, white alyssum’s honeyed sweetness, or the haunting sensual note of mandevillea, Flowering ginger lilies can put out such a strong scent as night you can almost float on it.
My favourite though has to be ‘lunaria’ or moonflowers, also known as honesty. The purple spring flowers are pretty enough. But it’s the paper silver seed case that really glow for months, stunning in both daylight and night.
And that’s another bit of magic about moon gardens. They are lovely in daylight too. Suddenly you have two gardens, not just one- an enchanted paradise for the evening, and and garden with quite different beauty during the day.
