Not Your Average Moon Garden

Bold shapes, a strong pattern, and bright colors make this design stand out all day, every day

When we built an addition to our eighteenth - century weatherboarding family and I look out our new bedroom window , I recognized an chance to create a garden viewed from above that would proffer cheer in every time of year and extend visual interest into the evening . It was a perfect situation for a lunation garden : a garden of white flowers and foliage designed to be seeable all eventide . But because all just gardeners express ideas from visit to majuscule gardens and adapt them to their own landscape painting , I am not afraid to admit that I shamelessly stole the idea of using yellow - foliaged evergreens ( or should they be call “ evergolds ” ? ) for my “ lunar month ” garden from a sojourn to Crathes Castle in Scotland .

The extensive gardens there are all brilliant , but I was captivated by one special space called the Golden Garden . As I go into this garden elbow room surrounded by beautiful white-livered and gold conifers , I matte as if I had walked into warm sunshine right out of the white-haired Scots mists . My farmhouse is no rook and our Connecticut climate is less than idealistic , but this was a clean case where inspiration present the perfect design solution .

Most of the conifer with standout shapes and glowing foliage at Crathes Castle would n’t survive our wintertime , so I selected sturdy substitutes : species and cultivars that would brighten the conniption well into the evening and warm the cold , saturnine season with a consistent backbone of glowing shrubs arranged in a distinctive plan .

A visible design extends the day

The area where I planned to construct this garden allowed for a symmetric designing with ample blank space defined on one side by the straight gem wall of my roseate garden . A rip - railing fence runs at proper angle from this wall , and a young oak tree Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree stand near it , aligned with the end of our house . A new section of split - runway fencing ties the oak tree tree to the nook of the house , creating a rectangle roughly 75 feet long and 30 feet wide of the mark .

I view plant along the proscribed edges of this space , but I adjudicate it would be more interesting to divide it into two discrete areas to create the illusion of a larger blank space . A walk through intimate yet connect area also adds the sense of journeying and drama that enhances an outdoor experience .

Because this garden would be look at day by day from my bedroom window , usually at twilight or aurora , I want to include a unique geometry recognizable from above and in modest Christ Within .

My friend , landscape architect Wallace Gray , inscribed a lovely human body eight within the orthogonal space . Rather than fill the figure with lawn surrounded by margin planting , he suggested planting the two halves as opposites : the bottom half nearest the family as a central lawn surrounded by plantings , the other half as a narrow-minded weed way of life running around the edge of a key seam . With a fountain installed within the top half of the physical body eight , the final human body consist of an oval lawn at one end and a rotund scheme of the jet pool at the other .

I was confident that such a classical design view from below or above would stand out at any hour and in every season .

A twist on tradition

Instead of sticking with the classic elements of a Sun Myung Moon garden , I made the follow adaptations to guarantee my quad was what I wanted .

White is n’t always right . Silver and livid are the definitive colour for a moon garden . Many white plants bloom in short , however , and are often less hardy than the golden plant I have choose . By shifting the main color of my garden to gold , I have greatly increase my plant pallet with a full sequence of blooms and folio from bounce through tumble .

A view be from at bottom and out . Moon gardens are traditionally place to posture and revel the transition from day to night . I experience my moonlight garden from above , count out my chamber windowpane , so the sheer conformation of my “ evergolds ” provide standout social organisation whenever I look down on this glowing outdoor elbow room .

Sound can replace scent . Many Nox - bloom plant common in moon gardens are marvellously fragrant . Because eventide scents are unmanageable to amply appreciate from my chamber window , I ’ve added the euphony of a humble spring as a layer of sensory interest .

Strong shrubs anchor the plan

I call this garden my “ moon garden ” because I most often view it by the light of the moon . Perhaps it should have been called the “ sun garden ” with its shades of pea green , yellow , and Au . When I come alive in the morning , the gilded leafage evokes the sun , a peculiarly pleasing effect during the dark Day of wintertime .

Golden evergreen leave the backbone of this garden because they hold their foliage and form all year long . Two magniloquent , attractively textured Hinoki cypress ( Chamaecyparis obtusa‘Crippsii ’ , USDA Hardiness Zones 4–8 ) anchor the ellipse lawn , flanked on either side by lower - develop arborvitae ( Thuja occidentalis‘Rheingold ’ , Zones 2–7 ) , which change by reversal a endearing bronze coloring material in winter . A orotund , conical arborvitae ( Thuja occidentalis‘Degroot ’s Emerald Spire ’ , Zones 2–7 ) highlights the fountain focal spot . A hedging of gold - thread sawara cypress ( Chamaecyparis pisifera‘Filifera Aurea ’ , Zones 4–8 ) forms a soft curve and enhances the affair of this garden room . Two more sawaras denote the entrance to the garden with their striking , filamentlike foliage .

Height add interest to any garden by drawing the eye up from the view , so each class , I transplant two columnar golden Monterey cypress ( Cupressus macrocarpa‘Goldcrest ’ , Zones 7–11 ) at the waist of the oval to punctuate its geometry . Even though they are not stout in my climate , their donation to the aim is so life-sustaining I do n’t begrudge digging them out each twelvemonth to be winter indoors .

To contribute even more glowing color , I practice sensationalistic and gold perennials such as lily - flowered ‘ West Point ’ tulip ( Tulipa‘West Point ’ , Zones 4–8 ) , which emerge in early give around the jet , and the strawberry mark - same flowers of waldsteinia ( Waldsteinia ternata , Zones 3–8 ) , which fill in beneath the shrubs in tardy spring . The ever - reliable ‘ Stella de Oro ’ daylily ( Hemerocallis‘Stella de Oro ’ , Zones 3–10 ) , which reblooms after springiness , is joined by the fortunate heyday of black - eyed Susan ( Rudbeckia fulgidavar.sullivantii‘Goldsturm ’ , Zones 4–9 ) as summertime turns to fall . I balance all of these yellows with other colors — specially their completing color , purple — to create a vibrant aspect throughout the time of year .

When visitors enter the Sun Myung Moon garden at nighttime , the perimeter glisten brightly , unfold the eve by an hour or more . Even in the profoundness of winter , the promising pearl of my evergolds gleam . Best of all , from my bedroom window , this garden adorn my optic every even before I fall away off to sleep and again in the morning when I waken .

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