Avant Gardener: The nighttime garden

  • By Kyle Valentini
  • June 26, 2012
  • 381
                        
Summary: Certain plants are at their best when viewed or smelled at night. Consider adding a few of these nocturnal beauties to your garden or landscaping to provide a nighttime respite that can be enjoyed until fall. Once the sun goes down and the garden tools have been put back in the shed, the garden gloves are drying out on the back porch and the hoses have recoiled into their hangers we gardeners generally bid farewell to beds and borders for the night. Some plants only bloom or release their scent at night and it might be worth keeping the screen door open to enjoy the visual and olfactory pleasures they have to offer. With names like evening primrose, moonflower and evening stock, the bloom time is spelled out for us and it is no wonder they were given such appropriate monikers. Evening primrose although an ornamental annual in our neck of the woods, can also be eaten. Both the flowers and the leaves are safe to eat as long as you have grown them without harmful synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. Like most plants, evening primrose has been used medicinally over the years for treating many maladies including obesity and headaches. Sweetly scented flowers in various shades of white, pink and yellow make evening primrose a delight in a cutting garden. It is difficult to get the seeds to germinate and patience is required. Fortunately many local garden stores sell the plants that grow quickly once established. Preferring sun to partial shade during the daylight hours, moonflowers are climbing plants with giant white blooms and heart-shaped leaves. They don’t mind it when the soil dries out and will continue to thrive even in our uninvited drought. Moonflowers grow easily and quickly and make for a stunning display in your evening garden. Evening stock has been cultivated since the 14th century. In shades of white, purple, pink and peach it pairs well with other plants in the garden or in pots. Grown mostly for its delightful scent, evening stock is a night bloomer worth planting. There are several other night blooming plants that can be successfully grown in the Ohio garden. Night phlox is both beautiful and comes with an almond-vanillas scent. Four o’clocks have a trumpet-shaped flower and a sweet scent. A favorite in the garden at Monticello that was home to our nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, four o’clocks bloom until the first hard frost in shades of white, yellow, pink, and deep magenta. Plants with white fruit or flowers are suitable for the night-time garden because of the reflective qualities of the value with no pigment. While flowers are wonderful there are other plants that will make the evening garden even more wonderful. Silver thyme with its almost iridescent qualities will shimmer under the glow of the moon. Some varieties of hostas with variegated leaves outlined in white or bright chartreuse add interest to the nighttime garden with their giant leaves. Try adding nicotiania, a member that of the nightshade family that becomes especially fragrant at night. The landscape of the garden is very different at night. While most of us have probably found ourselves on our knees, flashlight at the ready in search of the destructive slug that comes to feast when we have retired to the indoors, it is important to note that simply enjoying the garden, its beauty, its smell and the quiet it provides can be a wonderful way to spend an evening.


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