To enhance the overall effect of your white garden or moon garden design, plant gray, blue, silver or white variegated foliage plants along with your white flowers.
In selecting your white flowered plants for the white garden or moon garden, try to include some with silvery, gray or blue toned or white variegated foliage. This enhances the overall effect of the white garden by day. The pale foliage also shimmers at night and reflects moonlight, creating what is called a moon garden-a garden with white flowers designed especially to be enjoyed at night.
Flowers with Blue, Gray and Silver Foliage
Flowers with silvery or blue toned foliage to consider include dianthus, border iris, santolina, lavender, the nearly flower-free lamb's ear "Helene von Stein", Cerastium tomentosum, rosemary, artemisia, rue (Ruta graveolens), baptisia, boltonia, and many sedums and other succulents. If a plant with suitable foliage produces non-white blooms that seem intrusive, clip them off.
Silver and White Variegated Foliage
Variegated leaves can also be used to bring a silvery effect to the white garden. Consider the graceful silvery white variegated forms of grass-like perennial plants such as liriope and ornamental grasses, and the white patterned foliage of perennial flowering plants such as lungwort (Pulmonaria), ajuga, Jacob's ladder, iris, and the variegated sedums such as "Frosty Morn" to bring in silvery highlights.
Evergreens for the White Garden
Silvery and blue or gray toned evergreens can also be planted in the white garden. In addition to enhancing the effect of the white flowers in summer, evergreens will provide a constant, pleasant presence during the winter months when most of the flowers are dormant.
With careful planning, you can take advantage of the contrasting foliage of dark evergreens such as yew or boxwood or Japanese holly, and the blues and silvers of spruces and certain junipers and the blue Meserve hollies. Dwarf evergreens such as bird's nest spruce or dramatic forms such as that of weeping Atlas cedar can bring a spectacular winter interest to the white garden. Just imagine these covered in frost or snow for a glistening winter white garden!
Although evergreens are generally sold in small sizes, and there are certainly some dwarf cultivars available, be sure to check the mature size of the specific plant you are considering. Do not assume your evergreen will stay small.
Some so called dwarfs will grow well past the eaves of a three story house - because they are only dwarf when compared to the usual size of their species. In many cases, although slow growing, the cute little evergreen you see at the nursery will mature to quite a large size. Avoid surprises and check a reliable reference source so you can plant these wisely as a long term accent (or hedge enclosure) for your white garden or moon garden.
Read All of the White Garden Series:
More Roses for the White Garden
All Flower Gardens Articles So Far
Copyright 2006 Barbara Martin
