Moon Light Gardens
Moonlight gardens–planted with white and silvery flowers that glow after dark–became an early 20th century fad in both the US and Europe. After having a dream about a garden that shimmered in twilight, in the 1950s Vita Sackville-West created a white garden at Sissinghurst Castle that today remains England’s most visited garden.
And when archeologists stumbled recently upon the ruins of a lost garden at the Taj Mahal where night-blooming white flowers filled the air with perfume in the 17th century, the evidence helped solve a mystery dating to ancient Persia: What makes a moonlight garden?
Among the clues found at the Taj Mahal were charred bits of ancient flowering fruit trees, shards of pale sandstone decorated with a delicate lotus design, and the faint outline of an octagonal pool where more than two dozen fountains once sprayed water into the night air. The idea then, as now, was to create a luminous glow of white, silver, and gray to reflect moonlight. by Michelle Slatalla April 27, 2017
A white garden need not be wan and pale. Thomas Broom, horticultural manager of Petersham Nurseries in London, shows us that in editing color, your garden will have a stronger sense of shape and texture. It might smell more interesting too.
Keep It Small
Above: Silver foliage of Eryngium giganteum ‘Miss Willmot’s Ghost’ haunts Vita Sackville-West’s world-famous white garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent.
“A white garden should be relatively small,” suggests Tom Broom. “It is a narrow exercise; often enclosed.” The calm of a white garden offers respite, an escape from the rest of the garden, or the world.
Moonlight gardens–planted with white and silvery flowers that glow after dark–became an early 20th century fad in both the US and Europe. After having a dream about a garden that shimmered in twilight, in the 1950s Vita Sackville-West created a white garden at Sissinghurst Castle that today remains England’s most visited garden.
And when archeologists stumbled recently upon the ruins of a lost garden at the Taj Mahal where night-blooming white flowers filled the air with perfume in the 17th century, the evidence helped solve a mystery dating to ancient Persia: What makes a moonlight garden?
Among the clues found at the Taj Mahal were charred bits of ancient flowering fruit trees, shards of pale sandstone decorated with a delicate lotus design, and the faint outline of an octagonal pool where more than two dozen fountains once sprayed water into the night air. The idea then, as now, was to create a luminous glow of white, silver, and gray to reflect moonlight. by Michelle Slatalla April 27, 2017
A white garden need not be wan and pale. Thomas Broom, horticultural manager of Petersham Nurseries in London, shows us that in editing color, your garden will have a stronger sense of shape and texture. It might smell more interesting too.
Keep It Small
Above: Silver foliage of Eryngium giganteum ‘Miss Willmot’s Ghost’ haunts Vita Sackville-West’s world-famous white garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent.
“A white garden should be relatively small,” suggests Tom Broom. “It is a narrow exercise; often enclosed.” The calm of a white garden offers respite, an escape from the rest of the garden, or the world.
Above: Photograph by Thomas Broom.
Petersham still life: Florist-in-residence Thomas Broom lays down his flowers of the moment (clockwise from top left): Solomon’s Seal, peony, night-scented stock (and dotted around), clematis, allium, ranunculus, petunia, heuchera, sweet rocket, verbascum, bleeding heart, Ammi majus, Viburnum opulus.
Petersham still life: Florist-in-residence Thomas Broom lays down his flowers of the moment (clockwise from top left): Solomon’s Seal, peony, night-scented stock (and dotted around), clematis, allium, ranunculus, petunia, heuchera, sweet rocket, verbascum, bleeding heart, Ammi majus, Viburnum opulus.
Above: Allium ‘Mont Blanc’,