I was looking through 1 of the many catalogs I get and they had 2 pages of all white flowers. Which of course got me thinking about another themed garden.
Does anyone have a moonlight garden with all white and silver flowers/foliage?
Anyone have a moonlight garden?
I started one, but then I couldn't help adding more colors. But there are times when everything blooming is white or silver. I have brunnera 'looking glass' which has lovely silvery white leaves with green veining, white astilbe, white impatiens, japanese painted ferns, variegated hostas, silver leaved pulmonaria, trilliums, hydrangea 'quick fire' which starts out white, white rhododendrons, lamium, solomon's seal, among other things. The white and silver really do look lovely at night when there's a full moon.
Do you happen to have a pic??
I don't have a good one of the whole area, but if you ignore the purple irises in the foreground, my sort-of moonlight garden is on both sides of the stream. Here you can see the brunnera, astilbe (top right), japanese painted fern and a tiny part of the variegated hosta in top left corner. The brunnera especially pops - if your moon garden will get some shade, I highly recommend it!
Nice Idea!
Oops - forgot the picture...
Here's another shot of JP fern, variegated hosta, brunnera, pulmonaria and impatiens
I thought that one had the brunnera also, but it doesn't. Here's another...last one.
NICE!!!
Oh how nice that is. So refreshing and I bet in the moonlight it shines beautifully. I think if I could find a spot to squeeze in a silver and white bed I would like it, but then as has been said it would be very tempting to stick in a color here and then over there. Why would this bed be any different from all the rest. Start with a nice plan and color scheme, but then those pesky plants follow you home so you gotta stick 'em in some place. :)
Nice idea if you have the room for dedicated gardens or beds. I don't, but I do try to put the white flowering plants closer to the house so I can see them at night.
BEAUTIFUL stream! I can hear the water from here. What inspiration.
Great idea about putting white near the house.
Jan
Thats very nice, great combo!
I will take a better picture tomorrow, but this time of year this area is mostly white flowers and variegated plants with white foliage. There is a blue hydrangea on the left side of the walk and a few blue browallia and a misplaced group of bluish astilbe with it. But the predominate color is white which is a very refreshing break from the riot of colors on the other side of the fence. This was on June 27th. In the spring this is mostly whites, yellows and blues. My stream starts under the big rock in the middle of the picture. It was inspired by the pictures posted by SongsofJoy last summer. Beware, very aware or you to will be digging a stream. Patti
beautiful.... on my way over with my coffee!
;)
Just wonderful, love all the ferns and the stream.
Jo Ann
Patti-so pretty!
Well, the doctor just confirmed that I was dehydrated and the ONLY cure was to get a water feature. LOL I wish
Maybe just a little something on the deck so Mom could enjoy it too. Hey that's it. Now I have a bonafide excuse. MOM wants it. HEE-HEE.
Jan
Do you think DH will go for it?
Jan
I love that excuse!
I just started digging. Once it started to look like a stream, he started to get interested. But I think when he came home one day and found me in a five foot hole and still digging, he got it and started to help. He is the bigger stream addict now. Patti
Christina, I'm so impressed at how beautiful your compositions are. Your gardens are truly beautiful. On and on, from one gorgeous garden to the next. Patti, what a wonderful walkway! I love how you got your DH into it too! Clever! Lucky he went for it, or you'd be still digging, huh?
Ha, he was the clever one as he let me do all the digging and most of the rock rock. He did the tweaking! He was like a blister. He showed up when all the real work was done! He was out there this week with a scrub brush cleaning the rocks. Too Funny. I don't do window (well sometimes) or rocks! Here is a real moon light garden! Patti
Georgeous Patti
Harper - thank you for the compliments! Everything is still a work in progress, but it's all a labor of love for sure!
That moonlight pic is spectacular! The whites just pop.
As my 5 year says "SWEET!"
Oh that is a wonderful pic. The whites do seem to stand out but the whole thing is just lovely.
Thanks all, I was actually spying on the new neighbors who had just arrived when I saw the moon and all the white and yellow flowers. I popped the screen off my bedroom window and just snapped. I still haven't seen the new neighbors. They seem very very quiet so far. House has been being renovated for the last 9 months after it was totally renovated for the year and a half before by a house flipper who bought the house from my best friend. It was lovely to begin with, but they wanted to add lots of marble. Totally silly. I hope the new owners took all that out. Dying to see what they did. Patti
This is exciting. Patti, keep us posted. Was it an old house?
Jan
No the house was built like an old house in 1981 by a real craftsman. Lots of nooks and crannies and several level changes as was the way many houses grew and evolved in old Nantucket. No huge rooms, just very cozy and comfortable. Great light and air. It was totally charming and beautifully furnished and filled with art and books. The houses has amazing views of the harbor. It how has bigger porches and a guest house and garage plus a big new addition. I hope they don't put in a pool. Other neighbors have added them and the noise level gets elevated when they have a gang of kids or drunk adults at night. They don't seem to know that the whole perimeter of the island is a beach. One family seems to come to their house and never leave. Why bother coming if you don't experience the ocean at least sometimes. Very strange. I think they bought the house to say they have a summer house on Nantucket, but would rather be somewhere else. I would rather they be there too. Patti
It sounds lovely. The house of the lady who owned the farm I grew up on in NJ was like that. Not pretentious,but full of character. Again, lots of nooks and crannies ( like Thomas's english muffins) and angled rooflines. My favorite part of the house was considered to be the "servants' quarters". Sometimes I would stay over and I would sleep in one of those rooms. It had wallpaper with strawberries on it and a built in dresser. I thought I was in heaven. In the TV room one whole wall was a built-in bookcase. She had all the shelves FILLED with old iron toys. It had a fireplace (which was lit almost year-round) and window seats.
As a 6th grade girl, I would weed her garden and then help her walk the dogs all umpteen million of them.(maybe just 7 or 8) It just seemed like a lot . She had weimeraners and one little terrier type that really didn't leave the house. It was a fantastic place to grow up. She loved lilacs and had quite a few varieties. For a few weeks in the spring it smelled heavenly. The daffodils were all over the lower meadows down by the stream. My dad worked on the farm and later on my mom became her housekeeper/cook and supervised the nurses and aides that came in 24/7. Mom spent a lot of time in the flower room arranging the flowers from the garden. That's why I try to keep flowers in her room. They bring her so much joy.
It's sad when it seems that people don't look around and appreciate what is right in front of their noses. Or have no clue ( or maybe no consideration ) that their actions might be encroaching on someone else's enjoyment of their surroundings.
With the exception of you Patti, Nantucket "people" seem bent on showing off how much money they have.
My pal in the realestate business on the island tells stories that are so full of waste.Like your new neighbors.
Hope there is a core of stable, reasonable people there, you call friends.
Keep us posted for sure, I'm such a snoop.
Just found this thread - your pathway is gorgeous, bbrookrd!
I love the idea of a moonlight garden, but alas, not enough garden space at Our Old House . . . hmmmmm . . . maybe I will make one on the terrace sometime!
Seandor, that would be lovely - near the house to maybe even enjoy the fragrance from inside the house as the breeze blows.
ah, well, the terrace is a small park that is an island in the middle of our street . . . so a fragrant white garden there wouldn't waft scent to my home, but it would be nice for an evening stroll. . . .
Loving all the pictures! I don't have a moongarden--yet--but I do have plans for one in the future. One of the plants I have planned for is Nicotiana alata. I have some growing by my side door and to say I love it is an understatement. It has beautiful star-shaped flowers and is a beautiful, graceful plant. The flowers do close up on a warm sunny day but begin to open up in the early evening and by nine or ten p.m. the scent in the area is intoxicating. The only drawback I've noticed with these flowers is that as much as I love them, so do the brown oriental beetles and the occasional caterpillar. This is my first year growing them but I am sure I will always have a patch of them somewhere and I can't wait to have a ton of them in my future moongarden.
One plant I won't have in my moongarden will be moonflower--I've tried two years now to grow it and our growing season is just not long enough to make it worth it. If I start it early and transplant it and it will pout for weeks over being transplanted or if I start it outside as soon as the weather permits the growing season isn't long enough. Each year I tried I ended up getting only a few blossoms (beautiful and fabulously scented, absolutely) and then sure enough we'd get a frost and that was that. I don't want to waste time, space and energy on a plant that is only going to give me a few blooms that will only last for one night. Unless someone in my zone has tips on how to plant them successfully, I don't plan on trying these again.
Seandor, mine was sort of an accident. I am thinking hard about starting a well planned one. So I will be seeing what everyone is doing. Thanks, Patti