So-called "moon gardens" are landscapes so designed as to make it possible for you to enjoy them at night, even without flooding your yard with tons of artificial light. Moon gardens will show up better on moonlit nights, but the best moon gardens will be enjoyable even in the absence of moonlight, since they'll contain fragrant flowers that you can appreciate with your nose.
There are basically four categories of plants (there will be some overlap) used in moon gardens:
- Plants with white flowers
- Plants with bright foliage
- Night bloomers
- Plants with fragrant blooms
While the use of a mass of color can have great visual impact regardless of your landscape design theme, mass plantings are especially called for when planting moon gardens: a mass of white flowers simply has a better chance of having an impact than would the same white flowers scattered about.
Plants With White Flowers for Moon Gardens
We can further break down this category by focusing on season of bloom for the typical northern landscape. The early bloomers will light up your moon garden in early-to-mid spring, after which they pass the baton to the mid-season bloomers. The latter can be supplemented with annuals. You'll have to wait till late summer for the late bloomers, but they're welcome reinforcements who will grant your moon garden a "second wind" when they do arrive.
Some of the plants listed below come in colors other than white, too, but those with white flowers are preferred for moon gardens:
- Early Bloomers for Moon Gardens:
- Snowdrops
- Other bulb plants, such as white daffodils and white tulips
- Creeping phlox
- Bleeding heart
- Fothergilla
- Azaleas and rhododendrons
- Magnolia trees with white flowers, such as star magnolia
- Bradford pear trees (substitute 'Chanticleer')
- Mid-Season Bloomers for Moon Gardens:
- Yarrow
- Queen Anne's lace
- Sweet alyssum (treated as an annual in the North)
- Snow in summer
- Candytuft
- Shasta daisy
- Foxglove
- Laurel shrubs
- Climbing hydrangea
- Japanese dogwood
- Late Bloomers for Moon Gardens:
- Mums (purchased from nurseries in fall)
- False dragonhead
- Garden phlox
- Sweet autumn clematis
On Page 2 we'll look at plants with bright foliage for moon gardens, as well as night bloomers and plants with fragrant flowers....
