Moon Song

Nighttime flowers glisten under the spring sky in a moon garden

By: DEVON CADWELL BAZATA

Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

A moon garden includes white flowers that glow in the night, such as a white pansy (above), at Peterson’s Nursery in Lawrence.

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   A sky full of stars and moonbeams illuminate Lori Lommel’s all white nighttime garden.
Planted with white flowers and silver foliage, the dancing fireflies and white moths that flutter from flower
to flower create an enchanted retreat for the warm evenings that start in late spring and last through early
fall.
   A moon garden is composed of night-bloomers such as the moon flower and blossoming plants
that release nighttime fragrances. Ms. Lommel, an avid gardener and Montgomery resident, says she first came
across the idea while reading the works of English garden writer Vita Sackville-West. While honeymooning in
England, she and her husband toured the acclaimed White Garden of Ms. Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst Castle.
It was then, she says, she decided that she too would someday create a garden that shimmered in the moonlight.
   After moving to New Jersey six years ago from Berkeley Calif., Ms. Lommel says the time was
right to create her moon garden. With just under 1.5 acres, the first step was to mark out the shape of a large
crescent moon in her backyard. Several rounds of rototilling, and several loads of manure later, she scattered
two big packages of mixed white seeds into the soil. She laughs and says "I was anxious to get something started,
it was easy and I could just put these things in." Reflecting on what she now says wasn’t the best way to start
her moon garden, she says "I planted seeds of 30 or 40 varieties of plants, and I didn’t know what they looked
like. I didn’t plant them in rows, I just scattered them, so I wasn’t sure of what was a weed and what was
a flower." But this approach, as unstructured as it was, "actually came out beautifully," she admits. "It wasn’t
structured, it didn’t have shrubs and evergreens, it was just a beautiful crescent of white flowers."
   As glorious as it was, she says she realized the need for the "bones" of the garden to be
established. "I decided to put in an arch, and I carefully placed it so that when I was in the family room
I could look out through the center of the arch and see a beautiful old white dogwood tree back in the woods."
   She pauses and laughs, and comments on how sometimes even the best laid plans can go astray.
With a wistful tone to her voice, she recounts the story of a tree expert she hired to remove a oak tree that
died a year after it had been professionally planted. The 25-foot tree was to be removed, and a new tree planted
where it had stood. But instead of taking the tree off of her property, he replanted it in what he apparently
regarded as an inconspicuous spot in the Lommel’s back woods. Unfortunately, it was right in front of the dogwood
she had so carefully built her arch around. So now when she stands in her family room and looks out through
the arch, she sees the dogwood, but only through the branches of the dead oak tree. Undeterred, she says she
managed to get over the minor setback the obstructed view caused, and has continued to move forward with her
moon garden. Behind and set off to the side of the arch is a white flowering pear tree. It was one of 10 tiny
seedling trees she received for joining the Arbor Day Society six years ago. While all of the trees are growing
nicely in their various locations around the yard, it is the pear tree that has done the best. It towers over
the others and now measures close to 12 feet tall.
   After she placed the two largest elements of her garden, Ms. Lommel decided to embellish
the arch with plantings of the trumpet-shaped moon flower, a large and fragrant vine with stunning blossoms
that open at night and add an air of enchantment to the garden, along with a white clematis. She added mass
plantings of white daffodils (narcissus) in several of her favorite varieties including ice follies, thalia
and stainless. "Large groups provide a more dramatic effect," she says. Other mass plantings include bunches
of fourfold white Siberian iris, and white swan echinacea.
   "If you use all white, you get the shape, the texture, the pattern of all the flowers and
plants. You’re not distracted by the color," Ms. Lommel says. "In a lot of ways I think white gardens are more
beautiful than brightly colored ones." She says she finds the challenge of locating white varieties of the
specific plants she wants for her garden to be a satisfying one. Explaining her choice of plants, she says
"I don’t have everything I would normally have, because it is such a brutal area that I can’t plant a lot of
delicate things, they either get burned by the sun or eaten by the deer." To compensate, she says she over-plants,
providing enough to make sure there will be something left for her to enjoy after the elements and deer have
had their way with her garden.
   Charles Peterson, expert gardener and owner of Peterson’s Nursery in Lawrence Township says
there are many white blooming plants that would work well for a moon garden. "The Yucca is used in this area,
they are easy to grow. The flowers come on tall stalks and they are attractive." Other plants he suggests are
the night-blooming cereus (Hylocereus undatus), and gardenias, both tropical plants that must be brought in
before the first frost of autumn. He says "Quite frankly, any white blooming flower, which could include ageratum,
marigolds, petunias and white geraniums, will bloom 24 hours a day." For the late fall and early spring, he
says that white pansies, tulips and snowdrops would work well. In addition to the annuals and bulbs Mr. Peterson
suggests, he says there are many kinds of white perennials that would work well in the garden.

Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

This peace lily (above), also at Peterson’s Nursery, is another white flower that glows in the night.

   Some that Ms. Lommel has been successful with in her moon garden include peonies (Paeonia).
"I’ve had a lot of luck with peonies, so I planted white peonies, and next to them I added pincushion flowers
(Scabiosa), coral bells and white lilies." For larger shrubs she planted several white butterfly bushes
( Budddleia davidii ), bridalwreath (Spiraea) and tree peonies, which bloom a little later than the other peonies.
The huge silky white flowers of the tree peonies bloom brilliantly on a four to five-foot bush. Nestled nearby
are gas plants or fraxinella (Dictamnus albus). Rather than a night-bloomer, this plant can be described as
more of a night-burning flower — one that is surrounded by myth and folklore. Legend has it that if you
hold a lit match to the foliage of the gas plant the leaves will glow with a blue flame, or held to the blossoms,
the fire will cause the flower heads to glow with an orange flame and release the smell of lemon into the air.
All of this, according to the legend, does no harm to the plant. Plants that form a low border at the edge
of the garden are lambs ear (Stachys lanata) and dusty miller (Centaurea cineraria). Their silvery gray leaves
become almost iridescent in the light of the moon.
   Mr. Peterson says other good choices are white Mediterranean heather (Calluna) because it
blooms all winter, and Nicotiana in the old-fashioned white variety that grows about three-feet tall and is
almost jasmine-scented at night. "Along with the white flowers," Mr. Peterson says, "I would suggest a subtle
light coming down from the trees to give a gentle area light." He says that low-wattage flood lights can be
installed up in the trees, and directed downward to provide a soft moonlight-effect for moonless nights.
   As a working mother, Ms. Lommel says the moon garden she created is well-suited to her life.
After working all day, she says the time she has to enjoy the beauty of her yard is often found only after
dusk. "The garden is beautiful," she muses, "not only at night, but also in the evening when arriving home
from work, and in the early morning when the light is pale. The white flowers just sparkle." She pauses and
says that one of her favorite parts of having a nighttime garden is watching the moths and fireflies that flutter
through the fragrant blossoms amidst a backdrop of twinkling stars.
   Although she was writing about her own white garden, perhaps Vita Sackville-West summed up
the anticipation Ms. Lommel says she feels as the stirrings of spring gently nudge the garden out of its winter
slumber, "I don’t want to boast in advance about my gray, green and white garden…" writes Ms. Sackville-West,
in the book "In The Garden. "All the same, I cannot help hoping that the great ghostly barn-owl will sweep
silently across a pale garden next summer in the twilight."
   Peterson’s Nursery is located on Route 206 in Lawrence Township. For more information, call
(609) 924-5770.