My Moon Garden here at Glynwood has been a grand, fun project that will surely go through some fine-tuning for next year. It is a border that is backed by a truly dreary cinderblock wall topped by a chainlink fence that overlooks the apple orchards and sheep meadows. That fence is all that allows the Moon Garden to be deer-free. So cover it with white morning glories and pipe down. The white morning glory is "Pearly Gates" and it really covers the fence with blooms. I did plant real Moon Vines, but they have yet to flower. There is also some wild honeysuckle, but they were just small cuttings and haven't gotten their act together. The real surprise this time of year is that some of the white sweetpeas ('Royal White') are blooming well.
The next tier are the tall uprights, mostly white cosmos (except for that one pink one that sneaked in...), white cleome, and the stars of all Moon Gardens - Datura and Nicotiana 'Fragrant Cloud.' I will never have to replant them as they are merrily heaving seeds just all OVER the place. Some of the Gaura lindheimeri did well and bloomed profusely as this soil is not as rich as the other gardens I put them in. The white malvas came and went and came back; the white campions are biding their time and planning on blooming next year.
The supporting cast is made up of white snapdragons, white "music" columbines, white pansies, white flowering vinca, some small white poppies, and impressive stands of white foxgloves that came up like first-year puppies this spring and bloomed anyway. I have to admit I had a grand time scouring nurseries for everything 'in white'. But there are a few plants that just don't want to come in white. Marigolds, for example. This one was called 'Snowdrift' and I did it from seed. Not only is it a supremely dingy excuse for white, the flowers fade to the most pathetic brown-centered horrors....
For silver foliage I have some Artemesia 'Silver King' that hasn't got its act together yet and of course any Mulleins who wandered in were invited to stay. Oddly enough I never got the lamb's ears planted, but I do have two utterly flawless Artemesia Silver Mound plants at the ends of the very formal, brick-edged rose beds which now contain all White Simplicity roses. There are mats of silvery Helichrysum 'Moe's Gold' here and there.
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