Get Bright with White! 

Gardens are typically packed with color, but get this, you can fill a garden with a whole lot of drama by using plants of one color. Plant an all white moon garden!  White, light grey and light yellows reflect light so well that they illuminate the garden at night. A grey and white garden still has texture because you can get variation from the plant size, foliage and flowers. At night the white flowers and foliage reflect any moonlight.

Ox-eye daisies light up my night garden

Hooray for Grey!

Did you know that most grey or grey-green plants are drought tolerant? Most are also unattractive to deer?  Grey plants are the ones to look for at the nursery for easy care gardens.  Imagine an all grey and white garden in the evening. Grey can add beautiful contrast, also,  to green and yellow green pines and oaks so common in our gardens.  Try planting a low ground cover like Wooly thyme or Helichrysum at the foot of a white rose or other tall white flowering plants like lilac.

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Artemisia ‘Powis Castle,’ amongst the rosemary and thyme

Grey or White as an Accent

Plant color combinations can be jazzed up with a blast of grey like a garden favorite Artemisia  ‘Powis Castle.’ Try it with emerald green santolina and dark green rosemary for an area that needs no flowers to get its color. ‘Iceberg’ climbing roses or Potato vine have glowing white flowers in moonlight.

Try these:

September moon

White sedum, Sedum album

Datura, sometimes called moonflower

Shasta Daisy

Kathryn Cockroft My fence row of angel trumpets

Artemisia ‘Powis Castle,’ amongst the rosemary and thyme

Feverfew

Ammie Peter’s Angel’s Trumpet

Jeanne Sammons’s Asiatic lilies

Aristocrat Flowering Pear

Asiatic or Oriental lily

Cherrie Carine’s Clematis, pure white ‘Henryii’

Climbing Iceberg Rose in my garden

Hardy Hibiscus moscheutos ‘Disco Belle White’ from Dandi Gentry’s garden

Hooker’s Evening Primrose Oenothera elata hookeri

Jeanne Sammon’s night garden with solor lighting

Jeanne Sammons’s Asiatic lilies

Jeanne Sammons’s pearly white Hydrangea

Lisa Collier

Moonflower vine, Ipomoea alba

Ox-eye daisies light up my night garden

White Sage Salvia apiana

Plant by the moon:

• New Moon – 1st Quarter Plant leafy vegetables
• 2nd Quarter – Full Moon  Plant fruits that bear internal seed
• Full Moon – 3rd Quarter  Plant root vegetables
• 4th Quarter – New Moon Plants are least active…mow lawns

An all white or grey garden can give you a calm, peaceful feeling and be a relief from a riot of color elsewhere. Some people call a white garden a Moon Garden, but what is fantastic is that at night or in a shady area, the white and grey really comes to life!