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 ¹ that you can appreciate with your nose.

There are basically four categories of plants (there will be some overlap) used in moon gardens:

1. Plants with white flowers
2. Plants with bright foliage
3. Night bloomers
4. 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 ² 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 ³. 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 ⁴
• Other bulb plants ⁵, such as white daffodils ⁶ and white tulips
• Creeping phlox ⁷
• Bleeding heart ⁸
• Fothergilla ⁹
• Azaleas and rhododendrons ¹⁰
• Magnolia trees ¹¹ with white flowers, such as star magnolia
• Bradford pear trees ¹² (substitute 'Chanticleer')

Mid-Season Bloomers for Moon Gardens:


• Yarrow ¹³
• Queen Anne's lace ¹⁴
• Sweet alyssum ¹⁵ (treated as an annual in the North)
• Snow in summer ¹⁶
• Candytuft ¹⁷
• Shasta daisy ¹⁸
• Foxglove ¹⁹
• Laurel shrubs ²⁰
• Climbing hydrangea ²¹
• Japanese dogwood ²²

Late Bloomers for Moon Gardens:


• Mums ²³ (purchased from nurseries in fall)
• False dragonhead ²⁴
• Garden phlox ²⁵
• Sweet autumn clematis ²⁶

Lilacs seem especially fragrant at night.

David Beaulieu

Plants whose bright leaves qualify them for placement in moon gardens or "moonlight gardens," as they are sometimes called, fall basically into three categories. The foliage of these moonlight garden plants can be variegated, gold-colored or silver-colored. The following list provides examples of each:

 

Plants With Bright Foliage for Moonlight Gardens

 

 

• Variegated dogwood bushes ¹
• Variegated euonymus ², including 'Moonshadow'
• Gold Mops ³
• Lamb's Ear ⁴ (silver)
• Artemisia ⁵ (silver)
• Hosta ⁶ (variegated, gold)

 

In the next two sections, I list plants that boast some of the most fragrant blossoms known. I begin with the night bloomers (which must make use of scent, predominantly, to lure in nighttime pollinators).

 

Night Bloomers for Moonlight Gardens

 

 

• Fragrant evening primrose (Oenothera caespitosa
• Angel's trumpet ⁷ (Brugmansia spp.
• Moonflower (Ipomoea alba

 

 

Plants With Fragrant Blossoms for Moonlight Gardens

 

 

• Peonies ⁸
• Bearded iris ⁹
• Korean Spice Viburnum ¹⁰
• Roses ¹¹
• Lilacs ¹²