BY ALICE LINHART

I imagine every gardener has their favorite time of year with their favorite flowers — mine is early spring ephemerals, and the end of summer moon garden. This year I was concerned my flowers wouldn’t be ready but as always, nature does its thing and the flowers are poised to be blooming by the full moon, blue moon, super moon at the end of August!

Moon gardens by definition are gardens to be enjoyed by the light of the moon. The light from the moon is reflected differently off flowers and even foliage at dusk and at nighttime. They can bloom late in the day or at night with highly fragrant white blossoms that become a beautiful sensory garden.

I grow my moon garden right in front of the house for maximum enjoyment. I have selected my favorite white fragrant flowers over the years including Casa Blanca hardy lilies that bloom in early summer and perennial Phlox paniculata ‘David’ that has been blooming for several weeks now. Mostly, though, my flowers are annuals. I plant old fashioned trailing white petunias, various begonias, geraniums and lobelia in containers that bloom all summer. I plant tender tuberose bulbs (The Pearl Polianthes) in containers or in the ground in spring. Those, along with the next three are the superstars and are just starting to bloom.

Woodland tobacco (Nicotiana sylvestris) with its giant tobacco leaves grows to 4 to 5 feet with 3-inch trumpet flowers exploding like fireworks on the top of the plant. Fairy trumpet 4 o’clock (Mirabilis longiflora) is a short vine with delightful white flowers with raspberry centers and long curving stamens. And then there is datura (family Solanaceae) trumpet flower. A spectacular trumpet flower 7 inches long and 5 inches wide! Wowzer are they incredible, but they are also poisonous so handle appropriately. This year I added a container with jasmine and Mandevilla to enjoy while sitting on the deck. The choices are endless!

Moon garden flowers are fragrant to entice hummingbird moths to sip and pollinate the flowers, therefore I am tolerant when I see tobacco hornworms on my plants as they are the larvae of the magnificent hummingbird moths. In fact, I love to see caterpillars as my gardens are for the enjoyment of insects, bees, butterflies, moths, caterpillars, birds, frogs, toads, and other wildlife.

So here we are at the end of the summer when the air is close and the moon is bright. You can find me outside surrounding myself with intoxicating fragrance and beauty of the flowers enjoying the last of the warm summer evenings in my moon garden.