The Twilight Garden
Summer evenings are meant to be whiled away outdoors. When days are long and the weather remains kind, it‘s joyful to enjoy time outside as the evening light dwindles.
I love warm evening sunshine but once the sun lowers there’s a special sort of magic outside. The air seems to still, the light takes on a magical blue tinge (the French call it L’Heure Bleue) and hush descends, even if it’s momentary. As twilight comes in it’s easy to imagine the garden sighing and stretching after the rigours of the day - all that flowering, fruiting and generally being gorgeous. At twilight the garden becomes enchanting.
Many of us spend summer days at the office, indoors working, doing chores or trying to keep the kids cool. After the heat of a busy warm day there’s something magical about stepping out into the lingering twilight of the garden.
Your garden can be a wonderful place to spend the balmy summer nights of July and August. But does your garden beckon you outdoors in the evening? Just how enticing is your outdoor space in the twilight hours?
If you answered not really and not very to those questions, don’t despair. I’m going to share a few essentials tips for injecting after hours magic into your outdoor space.
I’m looking at design tips and plant choices here and these design principles can be applied to a small plot, large garden and even to a window box.
I’ve created a list of my favourite plants for twilight gardens which you will receive for free when you sign up to my mailing list here
Colour
As light levels drop something magical happens to certain colours in the garden. Bright colours that dazzle in the day disappear; shadows deepen and paler, cool tones come to life in the gloaming.
The basic science here is that in low light the human eye is less able to detect reds and yellows and finds blues and greens easier to spot.
White, silver and pastel colours reflect low light and moonlight creating an effervescent glow. This makes them visible after other colours have disappeared into the gloaming.
If you adjust your planting scheme to include some plants with light coloured flowers the blooms will appear to float and gleam at twilight.
For sunny beds plant pale roses, white agapanthus, echinacea, Mexican orange blossom (choisya) and lilies and try white hydrangeas in shady spots. lnclude plants with variegated or silver foliage too and they will ‘glow’ in the low evening light eg: astelias and stachys
TOP TIP: look for the word alba in a plant’s scientific name – it’s Latin for white.
No room for more plants in your beds? Then try planting white and pale summer annuals in containers eg: Ammi majus, Cosmos bipinnatus 'Purity', Cosmos bipinnatus 'Xanthos', Nigella 'African Bride', borage, brachyscome and white petunias. A large container packed with white and pale blue agapanthus is another twilight winner.
Light coloured flowers are shown off to best advantage against a dark background. So, position them in front of the dark foliage plants that disappear in the low light. You could put your twilight container in front of a hedge and see if that improves its appearance in the gloaming.
Don’t be tempted to turn all your planting over to these cool pastel colours. In daylight these light colours can be overpowering - white positively burns your eyeballs in bright light!
Prevent yourself being dazzled by mixing the colour to create planting that works by day and by night.
Bold Foliage & Forms
Densely planted beds that look fantastic in the daylight can get lost in low light.
A twilight garden needs strong bold shapes and silhouettes.
Tall plants with interesting silhouettes like tall grasses, Verbena bonariensis, allium seedheads and umbellifers like angelica and fennel work well.
Spire plants like white foxgloves look magically reaching up above the rest of the planting as do architectural agapanthus.
Carefully placed, strong topiary shapes like standard bay trees and manicured hedges are striking in low light and act as a background to the light coloured blooms. I use yew hedging in my garden designs because the dark green foliage creates a fantastic foil to planting schemes.
Scent
As the sun goes down the perfume from night scented plants starts to increase. These plants have evolved to attract nocturnal pollinators like moths and are often pale in colour, making them more visible in moonlight.
Old fashioned pinks, stocks, philadelphus, brugmansia, heliotropes, ipomoea, lilies and nicotiana have fantastic perfume that increases in intensity as light lowers.
Plant them in a warm, sheltered spot where the scent will linger rather than being blown away on the summer winds - south or west facing areas are often good locations.
Hard landscaping materials store up the heat during the day, then release it in the evening. Locating your twilight planting next to a terrace or by a wall will heighten the sultry night scent of your plants.
Planting night scented climbers near seating areas, open doors and paths will allow you to enjoy their sweet night scent. My favourite is evergreen Trachelospermum jasminoides which has bonus white flowers that glow in the twilight.
My summer flowering Daphne x transatlantica ‘Eternal Fragrance’ ticks all the boxes for twilight excellence. It has dark mound forming foliage with pale flowers that glow in the evenings. Plus, the gorgeous scent it pumps out during the day becomes deep and sultry by night. A real winner!
Attracting Wildlife
Moths, bats and hedgehogs mainly come out at night and add to the enchantment of a twilight garden.
Planting the pale, scented flowers mentioned above will attract moths. Other good flowers choices offering pollen for moths are nicotiana, honeysuckle, sweet rocket (hesperis) and evening primrose.
There’s a special thrill to hearing a hedgehog snuffling around your garden at night time. Hedgehogs will eat your slugs and snails so are a gardener’s friend. The best things you can do to encourage hedgehogs into your garden is to garden organically and avoid using slug pellets which poison their food. Leaving an area of your garden untended and overgrown creates a great habitat for them, especially if you have water. You can buy specially designed hedgehog houses too.
Watching the aerodynamic flying antics of bats over your garden is very exciting. Many bats are now endangered because of loss of habitat and lack of food, so helping them is important.
Bats are after night flying insects so including pollinator friendly plants in your garden is a good way to encourage them. A log pile will also bring in insects. You only need a few logs heaped up and left to rot down in a shady, unseen part of your garden, to make a difference. You could also put up a bat box on the shady north side of your house.
Features & Structures
Strong architectural features take on a different appearance in the gloaming. A white garden ornament that acts as a focal point during the day will assume a glowing presence in the evenings. This could be a seat, an urn, a sculpture or a water feature.
An arch or arbour clothed in white flowering climbers will create a star twilight feature. Try white climbing roses, jasmine or trachelospermum. Similarly, climbers trained on strong structures like obelisks work well.
Pale coloured walls in your garden act like big reflectors, bouncing even more light in and allowing you to eke out every last minute from your garden.
I haven’t touched on garden lighting in your twilight garden – that’s a whole article in itself! Give garden lighting careful thought. Bright, overhead lights can kill the atmosphere and deter wildlife. Low key solar powered and rechargeable lights may be a better option for showing the way without wrecking the subtle beauty of your twilight garden.
I hope my top tips will help you transform at least part of your garden into a twilight haven. A space you and the wildlife can enjoy in the twilight hours this summer. Do let me know if you try these ideas and how they work for you.
And remember the other advantage of spending time in your garden at twilight is that you can’t see the weeds!
Further Reading…
