On a recent visit to the Phoenix Art Museum, I kept noticing their garden. There was a long walkway of a variety of white flowers of various heights, and even in daylight, it glowed. When I finally walked outside to see it up close, I was overtaken by the fragrance of the flowers. I asked about the garden and was told that it’s a moonlight garden, and that I should return at night. And thus began my new obsession.
What’s a moonlight garden?
White is a predominant flower color around the world, but it’s rare we see many of them planted together. Silvery, cream, and white-toned flowers together tend to give the impression of glowing. And while it’s most striking in these bleached tones, you can also add other colors that catch the light: chartreuse, lavender, light blue, or yellow.
More importantly, there are certain flowers that actually only bloom at night, opening to the moonlight, and in some cases, only becoming fragrant at night.
Night bloomers
There are plenty of flowers to consider for your moonlight garden. Moonflower lives up to its name, unfurling pearly blooms in the evening. Foamflower is a low-maintenance woodland favorite. The casa blanca lily is the milk colored and opens at twilight. Tuberose sends up spikes up to four feet tall of purfumey aroma. Mock Orange fills a space easily, growing as much as ten feet, and thought the blooms are visible during the day, it smells the best at night.
When it comes into season, night blooming jasmine can be recognized from ten feet away. The vine can climb any structure, creating a wall of color. Night phlox hugs the ground, balling up during the day and unfurling at night with small white flowers. Night gladiolus add a spicy scent on variegated two-foot spikes.
Use white day bloomers to fill out your space
Since you want the garden to shine during the day too, you can mix your night-blooming petals with white day-blooming flowers. Climbing white roses help add real structure to any garden, like over a trellis, or hugging the wall, or with more traditional rose bushes. Adding white clematis to a wall of roses allows the clematis vines to use the roses as a trellis.
Use silver and gray flowers to make the colors pop
One of the real tricks to these gardens are to have silver or gray flowers to create a shadow effect against the white. Eringium is a great choice, with fabulous alien-looking seedheads and flowers the shade of sterling. Salvia White Sage is a perennial that is drought tolerant and sends up shoots of pewter sage. Silver Baby Agapanthus creates little satellites of grey.
Making a beautiful moonlight garden
When you create a scene with your plantings, consider the seasons, sunlight, and plant height. Start by listing your white plants by height, and make a mockup of the space you’ll be planting in. Place the tallest plants in the middle if you have a garden you can walk around, or in the back if you’re planting against a wall. Start with evergreen plants that will keep their foliage all year round, and then add your climbing vines, which are usually seasonal. Work your way out, going lower in height until you reach the front of the garden.
After that, add the flowers that will act as shadows: your silvery-toned or lavender plants. Be sure to consider what it will look like in the winter and summer months, as you can extend your garden’s color throughout the year by changing out your plants.
Leave some space in the front for annuals—those plants that don’t come back year to year. These reachable spaces mean that when your annuals die, you can tear them out and easily replace them.
Finally, consider your lighting. White moonlight gardens appear to glow on their own, soft lighting can help. Consider adding soft lights and, if possible, nearby seating. If you’d like a jumpstart, consider buying a Moonlight Garden mix. Moonlight gardens can take a while to fill in and take shape, but you can create a magnificent spectacle worth the investment.