Gothic Gardening: Theme Gardens

The Night Garden

Your Gothic Gardener, mAlice, here again. Today's subject will be the Night Garden. Since you gothy types rarely seen the light of day, what good does a garden do you? Well, here is the answer: a garden that consists of night-fragrant or night-blooming plants. Of course, you can't really see that black garden at night. The key color here iswhite. White glows in moonlight. And there are several varieties of plants who bloom exclusively at night, or whose flowers may be open during the day but don't release their scent until the evening.
white garden

Night Flowering Plants

Evening Primrose
Evening Primrose"These soft-scented flowers have four satiny heart-shaped petals that come together forming 2 inch open cups with frilly long stamens. When they open in the evening, the blossoms are a soft clear white that gradually fades into pink as the flowers mature. Their luscious scent reminds us of a cross between honeysuckle and lemon custard. The flowers open every evening throughout summer until first frost."



Sweet-scented Nicotiana
These nicotianas (yes, that's the tobacco plant) have creamy-white tubular flowers borne in graceful sprays on softly draping branches. The 2 to 3 inch trumpet-shaped blossoms are closed in the daytime but in the late afternoon and evening they fill the air with a jasmine-like scent.

Moonflowers
moonflowerThese 6 inch trumpet flowers unfurl in slow motion every night just at sunset. Pure white with faint green tracings, the blossoms are very fragrant all evening. By noon, the flowers dwindle and close and are barely seen in the dense foliage.



"Midnight Candy" Night Phlox
"These tidy upright plants bear umbrella-like clusters of small, delicate phlox-like flowers. The insides of the petals are pure white and the outsides are a satiny maroon with a hint of white where petals overlap. During the day, the flowers are tightly closed, just showing a hint of color. As dusk comes on there is a magic moment when they open like a display of little firework stars, releasing a delicious almond/ honey/vanilla-like fragrance that wafts throughout the garden."

Angel's Trumpet
Angel's Trumpet Datura meteloides has six-inch white trumpet flowers that open at night and remain open well into the following day. This flower is a favorite subject of Georgia O'Keefe. This was also used by California Indians as a narcotic for the youth to seek their visions and be initiated into society. Warning: poisonous. Don't eat it to get a high.



Evening Stock
Many branched 1½ foot plants have gray-green leaves and 1 inch star shaped flowers of very pale violet. The blooms are closed tightly all day but open at dusk to pour out a fantastic spicy fragrance.

Nottingham Catchfly, Night-flowering Catchfly, and White Campion
SileneThese are all members of the genus Silene, which also has several day-blooming members. These plants have sticky stems, hence the name 'catchfly'. The odor of the Nottingham catchfly is described as sweet and reminiscent of hyacinths, and its flowers open on three successive nights before withering.

Bouncing Bet (Also known as soapwort)
With either pink or white blossoms, this plant fill the night with sweet perfume. Also used to make detergent--hence the soapwort moniker.

Four o'Clocks
Four o' ClocksIn late afternoon, Mirabilis jalapa's two inch trumpet-shaped flowers unfurl, releasing a rich jasmine-like perfume. These plants, with blooms in pink, rose, white, orange , and yellow, are very easy to grow and fast growing. They're also known as "Marvel of Peru".



August Lily (fragrant Hosta)
The leaves are about 6 inches long and 4 inches wide, with 8 pairs of impressed veins. The white, waxy, trumpet-shaped flowers appear on 30 inch scapes and each is 5 inches long and 3 inches wide. The scent is of pure honey.

Vesper Iris
A native of Mongolia, the sweetly fragrant flowers are a dull greenish white spotted with brownish purple or reddish purple with white splotches. Like many iris blossoms, they become spirally twisted after flowering.
There's also about 50 different cultivars of daylilies which bloom at night. Some of my favorites are called 'After the Fall' (tangerine and copper blend with yellow halo), 'Jewel of Hearts' (dark red flowers with a red-black center), 'Moon Frolic' (near white), 'Toltec Sundial' (fragrant sunshine yellow) and 'Witches Dance' (dark red with a green throat).

Night Fragrant Plants

Many plants will have flowers open during the day, but they don't release their scent until evening:
Perfumed Fairy Lily
Chlidanthus fragrans has a rich lily fragrance at night. Three or four yellow, funnel shaped flowers are carried on stems up to a foot high.

Night Gladiolus
Gladiolus tristus has creamy yellow blossoms that are intensely fragrant at night with a spicy-sweet perfume, and the unusual leaves look like a pinwheel cut in half.

TuberoseTuberoses
Victorians loved this sweet and heady (almost overpowering) fragrance. The flowers are waxy white and 2 inches long.

Carolina Jessamine (also known as evening trumpet flower)
The evergreen leaves surround sweetly fragrant, bell-shaped flowers of bright yellow that are particularly sweet as evening approaches. This grows wild in the South.
Finally, some suggestions for plants which don't necessarily bloom only at night or release fragrance then, but which have white blooms to glow in moonlight:

Fraxinella And for a note of interest: Silver Thyme, 'Alba' Eggplant (egg-shaped fruits of glistening white), 'Casper' or 'Boo' white pumpkins and Fraxinella (the gas plant: at night, if you hold a match to the plant, either the plant glows with a blue flame--that doesn't harm it--or the flowers burn with an orange flame and release the smell of lemon into the air)

The perfect accessory for any Night Garden, besides some lovely gargoyles, would be a moondial.

There are many, many more plants that can be included in the Night Garden. If you want more information, I suggest either The Evening Garden by Peter Loewer, or Evening Gardens by Cathy Barash, both written exclusively about gardening for the evening and night hours.

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