Moonlight Gardens

By Alex Tisthammer | Fort Collins Nursery

You come home after a long hot day and after cooking dinner you finally get to sit outside and breathe in the fresh night air. There’s a small bowl of water laid out by your seating area and looking into it, the moon’s reflection is gazing up at you. Flowers resembling crisp white folds of linen are blooming all around you and reflecting the moonshine, their sweet scents floating on a gentle breeze. 

In the early 1500s, India’s Mughal emperor, Babur, created the first moonlight garden as a sanctuary to enjoy the cooler night air and relax while recovering from the intense heat of the day. Fragrant white blossoms and flowering trees were planted to release pleasant aromas, while cooling waterways and fountains were integrated to provide peaceful sounds. The purpose behind moon gardens was to satisfy not only the eyes but also the other senses. 

The first example of this type of garden present in the United States was recorded in 1833 in Massachusetts. The gardens were designed by an eccentric gardener named Benjamin Poore, who created enormous borders with swathes of white candytuft, daffodils, lilacs, flowering almonds, foxgloves, and lilies. He even added white cows, pigeons, and a dog to accentuate the white blossoms! Around this time in Victorian England, moon gardens were on the rise as well. One popular night-blooming annual vine, the Moonflower Vine, was frequently used in Victorian gardens. They were trained to wrap up porch posts so the heavenly scent could be enjoyed as people sat and relaxed. Their huge, crisp, white flowers unfurl in the evening, attracting nighttime pollinators like hawk moths. 

In modern times, a lot of us aren’t home in the middle of the day to enjoy our backyard sanctuaries, so creating a space that is visible and relaxing in the evening makes perfect sense. Moon gardens, moonlight gardens, or twilight gardens were traditionally made up of plants with white flowers and/or silvery foliage. However, shades of white aren’t the only colors that can be utilized; even pale colors like lavender and blue add variety, are easily illuminated by moonshine, and look exquisite paired with white. There’s no need to dedicate entire garden beds don’t to this theme. Instead, clusters of white plants and silver foliage can be planted within beds so that when the sun goes down, a completely different landscape is visible. In the daytime, the white blossoms can get lost amongst brighter colors, but in the moonlight, they become the brightest stars. 

Wherever you decide to put your moon garden, select a portion of the yard that is enjoyable during the evening, where the plants and their fragrance can be fully enjoyed, and where the moon can hit the plants without being blocked. Creating a nighttime oasis can give a reprieve from not only the heat of the day but also the busy world we all experience. Designing a space dedicated to deeply breathing, quieting a racing mind, and being in the moment can benefit everyone immensely and make the end of each day more enjoyable.