{"id":36143,"date":"2013-04-22T00:09:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T07:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=36143"},"modified":"2013-04-22T00:09:14","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T07:09:14","slug":"moonlight-gardening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/36143","title":{"rendered":"Moonlight Gardening"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t“<\/b>Picture this,” invites night-beguiled blogger Moonfairy<\/a>,<\/p>\n

“It’s a warm summer night \u2026<\/p>\n

tree frogs and crickets are singing their night songs,<\/p>\n

and the full moon is casting its glow on the landscape.<\/p>\n

You wander through the moonlight until you come to a place<\/p>\n

that seems to glow …<\/p>\n

It is your very own moonlight garden,<\/p>\n

and creating one is easier than you think.”<\/p>\n

\"gift_gab-moonlight_gardening1\"

Cloud Study, Moonlight by Albert Bierstadt, c. 1860, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m entranced\u2014how about you?<\/p>\n

I wandered serendipitously into the magical world of moonlit gardens while wrapping up the latest issue of MaryJanesFarm<\/i>, June\/July 2013.<\/p>\n

The theme of the magazine?<\/p>\n

“Midnight Hour.”<\/p>\n

So, I simply had to know \u2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

what IS a moonlit garden, and how can I get one?<\/p>\n

\"gift_gab-moonlight_gardening2\"

Photo by Imogen Cunningham, 1911, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

What is a Moonlit Garden?<\/b><\/p>\n

Every good gardener covets the sun.<\/p>\n

Our fruits and flowers depend upon those bright, golden rays.<\/p>\n

Exposure is everything.<\/p>\n

But, as the sun retires and shadow envelops the landscape,<\/p>\n

an entire cast of otherworldly blooms begins to unfurl with a whisper<\/p>\n

of lush fragrance<\/p>\n

and mysterious allure \u2026<\/p>\n

\"gift_gab-moonlight_gardening3\"

“The Night-Blowing Cereus” from The Temple of Flora, 1804, via Wikipedia<\/p><\/div>\n

Jasmine, tuberose, gardenia, and moonflower take their cue from the darkness,<\/p>\n

creating a garden of moonlit wonders,<\/p>\n

luring nocturnal pollinators like the velvet-winged luna moth.<\/p>\n

\"gift_gab-moonlight_gardening4\"

Photo of a luna moth by Geoff Gallice via Wikipedia<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cGardens at night are more fragrant than gardens at day because most nocturnal pollinators have poor eyesight so must rely on their sense of smell to find flowers,\u201d says John Kress, curator of botany at the Smithsonian Institution\u2019s National Museum of Natural History.<\/p>\n

Vita Sackville-West<\/a>, a 19th century gardener and author, designed a divine White Garden at her Sissinghurst Castle in England. The garden was carefully planned to exude an ethereal glow long after sunset, favoring the luminous white blossoms of white tulips, lilies, anemones, cream delphiniums, campanulas, and Iceberg and White Wings roses. Vita wrote that she hoped “the great ghostly barn-owl will sweep silently across a pale garden … in the twilight.”<\/p>\n

\"gift_gab-moonlight_gardening5\"

Photo of a rose arbor in Sissinghurst’s White Garden by Vashi Donsk via Wikipedia<\/p><\/div>\n

Another maven of moonlit gardens was Thomas Edison’s wife, Mina. In 1929, she commissioned one of the first female landscape architects, Ellen Biddle Shipman, to design a night garden<\/a> at the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers, Florida. It was filled with blue and white flowers that surrounded a small reflecting pool to capture moonlight.<\/p>\n

\"gift_gab-moonlight_gardening6\"

Photo of Mina Edison’s moonlight garden via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

The Making of a Moonlit Garden<\/b><\/p>\n

While moonlit gardens elicit starry illusions of grandeur, you needn’t be royalty<\/p>\n

(or a famous inventor’s wife, as the case may be)<\/p>\n

in order to transform your own backyard into a midnight marvel.<\/p>\n

In fact, moonlit gardens may be easier to undertake than those we dabble in by day \u2026<\/p>\n

“The moon forgives the blight laid bare by sun,” writes National Geographic’s<\/i> Cathy Newman<\/a>. “The cankered flower, the desiccated leaf, the rotted branch are swallowed by shadows, leaving only the illusion of perfection, silvered by starshine, gilded by moonlight.”<\/p>\n

Ahhh \u2026<\/p>\n

Inspired?<\/p>\n

Discover fragrant night-blooming flowers and dreamy design ideas for your glowing garden using Moonfairy’s “How to Create a Moonlight Garden”<\/a> tutorial.<\/p>\n

Star light, star bright,<\/p>\n

first star I see tonight \u2026<\/p>\n

I wish I may, I wish I might<\/p>\n

see flowers blooming late at night.<\/p>\n

 \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Picture this,” invites night-beguiled blogger Moonfairy, “It’s a warm summer night \u2026 tree frogs and crickets are singing their night songs, and the full moon is casting its glow on the landscape. You wander through the moonlight until you come … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gift_for_gab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}