9:28 p.m. Tuesday, August 25, 2009

What a little moonlight can do in the garden

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By LEE REICH

For The Associated Press

"By the light of the silvery moon" is such a fine time to be in the garden.

This photo taken May 15, 2008 shows a garden at night. The most dramatic change to come over the garden at night is -- duh -- darkness. Even full moonlight bathes the garden with only about one-half-millionth as much light as sunlight.

AP Photo, Lee Reich This photo taken May 15, 2008 shows a garden at night. The most dramatic change to come over the garden at night is -- duh -- darkness. Even full moonlight bathes the garden with only about one-half-millionth as much light as sunlight.

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The look is quite different from the garden in daylight, and worth considering when you plan your plots. Even full moonlight bathes the garden with only about one-half-millionth as much light as sunlight.

COLOR GONE

This darkness brings subtle changes in our perceptions of the garden. There's not enough moonlight to activate the color sensing cones in our eyes, so the same garden that is in technicolor in afternoon is in black and white at night. Not that it is any less appealing: What it lacks in colorful fun it gains in quiet elegance.

Without the distraction of color, mass and form are what catch our attention in the night garden.

Forsythia, rhododendron, lilac and other shrubs that are dense with leaves take on a bold presence at night, joining other amorphous masses. In daylight, those same bushes hardly get a second glance, except in spring when they are draped in flowers.

Walls and trees — every dense, three-dimensional form, in fact — also take on a bold presence in the silvery moonlight. Their forms might suggest alien creatures. They might guide our eyes or feet along in the dim light. And they might offer an earthbound anchor from night's awesome "big sky."

You won't get this feeling from hybrid tea rose bushes or a few marigolds here and there, both of which brighten the garden by day but fade away into the darkness of night.

APPARENT SIZES CHANGE

By day, colors alter our perception of the landscape. The red of such flowers as geranium and crocosmia is so eye-catching that the plants seem to jump towards us. A sedate sweep of blue — whether from salvias or balloon flowers — has the opposite effect, that of receding into the distance. Now jumble the sunlit scene further with contrasts and harmonies among colors. Whew!

For relief, step out into the moonlit garden and be greeted by serene, static masses. For some reason — perhaps it is the lack of color — everything visible in the moonlit garden seems larger than it does by day. By night, butterfly bushes will seem ready to embrace or envelop from all sides; an arbored entranceway to a vegetable garden feels like it towers overhead at night.

NIGHT BLOOMERS

And yes, the night garden does have its flowers. As darkness falls, it is pale flowers, and especially white ones, that become more prominent. They seem to emit a soft glow.

White phlox, golden and pink blushed climbing roses, white and soft pink lavatera: they all offer a cool but welcoming hello in the light of the moon.

Among night's most hauntingly beautiful flowers are those whose pale trumpet shapes attract the pollinating bats and moths that go about their work only at night. Like their pollinators, some varieties of these flowers — angel's trumpet, nicotiana, cereus and moonflower, for example — open only at night, shyly folding up each morning.

The sweet fragrances wafted into the air by many night bloomers strengthen their allure to bats and moths. The perfumes alone might be sufficient enticement to bring you out into the garden at night, to enjoy even in the absence of moonlight.

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