If you’re planning a spring garden, you’re selling your whole yard short if you aren’t also planning to grow a moon garden. These gardens add something just so magical and dazzling to your garden in the evening time.
What is a moon garden?
A moon garden is a garden that has been stocked with special plants that flower at night and reflect light well during a full moon. This produces a garden in which flowers can be easily seen at night. A walk through a moonlit garden can be a truly surreal experience when all of the flowers are in full bloom.
They aren’t just nice to look at, but they’re also good for local pollinators. Not every pollinator goes about their business during the day. Some pollinators, like moths, look for night time blooming flowers to feed on.
How to plant a moon garden
Planting a garden will be as simple or complex as you want it to be. It can be as easy as digging a few holes in the ground and putting in some moon garden plants or planning out a whole ornate, beautiful garden. But we’re happy to offer a few more tips than that.
In general, for moon gardens you’ll want to select plants with lighter colored foliage, plants with light or white colored flowers, and plants that continue to keep their flowers open at night. If planting along a path or perimeter, plant shorter-growing plants toward the front and taller moon garden plants at the back so not to obscure the view of any one flower.
Moon gardens are made doubly special by a good ambiance, like the gentle trickle of a pond or fountain.
The best night blooming plants
There are two types of moon garden plants that it’s recommended you add to your garden: plants with bright white blooming flowers and plants with lighter colored foliage.
Best light colored flowers
The following list contains some of the best flowers for moon gardens. My favorites are mock oranges, which have an amazing fragrance to them, hydrangeas, which erupt in massive flowers, and snow-in-summer, which has the added benefit of lighter colored foliage as well.
- Snowdrop
- White bleeding hearts
- White daffodils (perfect for early spring moon gardens!)
- Bacopa
- Hydrangea
- Mock orange
- Snow-in-summer
Best light colored foliage
Seeing a white flower emerge from a darker colored plant at midnight under a full moon is stunning, but for a balanced and aesthetically pleasing garden, you’re going to want to infuse plants that might not produce these flowers but do have lighter colored foliage. The following is a list of some you should consider.
- Lamb’s ear
- Dusty miller
- Hostas
- Artemisia
We hope this guide is helpful and that your next garden will be one worthy of watching under a full moon!
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