Gardening is one of the most popular hobbies, but it normally involves being outside in the sun. If you like gardening, but aren’t a sun-worshipper, or just don’t get the time to enjoy your garden during the day, you can create what is sometimes called a Nigh Garden or Moon Garden. This is a garden that is planted to be enjoyed at dusk and in the moonlight. Moon Gardens typically have pale flowers and plants that reflect moonlight well or smell their best in the evening. From choosing flowers and plants to encouraging the animals that come out at night to love your garden, there’s so much you can do to make your own night garden shine.
How To Decorate A Night Garden
Stone garden statues, or even a sundial, can pick up the fading dusk light in all kinds of interesting ways, casting shadows and creating some unexpected features.
You need lights so you can see. Solar powered garden lights are ideal, as they will charge during the day and light the garden at night. Solar fairy lights in trees and bushes will be invisible during the day and come alive as night falls.
Seating areas can be lit up by fairy lights, creating atmospheric spaces that are great to use on balmy summer evenings for drinks, dining out or barbecues.
Flowers for a Night Garden
Moon-friendly flowers can be overlooked during daylight, but at night, they will shine. The best options are light in colour, usually white, cream, or light yellow. These colours will pop under the light of the moon and will appear to glow in the low light. A lot of these flowers come in multiple colours, so make sure you choose a colour that will look good at night. Good flower choices include:
- Petunias
- Irises
- Lilies
- Peonies
- Lily of the valley
- Yucca
- Baby’s breath
White and light-coloured flowers are pretty at night, but gardening should appeal to all the senses. You want to tempt the nose as well as the eyes. A lot of beautiful flowers only produce scents at night, and often have a stronger scent than day blooming flowers. It’s best to plant scented night garden flowers where you will brush against them or walk close to them. Plant them around doors and pathways.
Good options include:
- Moonflower
- Evening promise
- Datura
- Honeysuckle
- Nicotina
- Jasmine
- Garden heliotrope
Shrubs work well in a night garden too, adding contrasting colours, shapes and and heights. Shrubs don’t have to be big – small and hardy shrubs with a variety of colours, from light green leaves to pinks and purples, include Hebe, many of which also flower during the year.
Night Animals
A lot of animals prefer the night, and you can encourage them into your night garden in all kinds of ways.
- Build a bat box. This has a narrow entrance on the bottom and a small grooved ladder for bats to scale. You can fix the bat box to a tree.
- Attract more bats with moths and insects. These creatures love lots of different kinds of flowers.
- Plant more pale flowers. These are easier for insects to see once the sun has gone down, so you will get more night-time insects, and a higher chance of bats.
- Shrubs and bushes create hidey-hole for small mammals to feel safe when they come to your garden. Overturned and broken pots are great for insects too. All kinds of your favorite night animals like to eat insects, from owls to hedgehogs.
Have fun creating your night garden!
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