Twilight Gardening | Residence + Backyard

Twilight gardening is really a thing. Gardening at sunset does not require the same muscle intensity as gardening during the day. The summer garden looks very different at sunset. A little gentle sitting / weeding and cozy watering by hand in the evening draws your full attention to your garden. It’s a great way to achieve extreme mindfulness. And gardening around night-scented plants makes it a completely different experience. Here are a few night-scented plants that can add a new experience to a twilight garden.

Photo by Philippe Teuwen from Flickr

Star jasmine: An evergreen vine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) that usually grows along a trellis. It is covered with small, pure white flowers. It also smells during the day, but gives off its sweet scent in the evening.

Gardenia jasminoides | Photo by Binh Huynh via Flickr

Gardenias: The long-standing holy grail of “sweet smells”. Gardenia jasminoides ‘Kleim’s Hardy’ (Cape Jasmine) is a shrub that survives the northwestern winter. It usually remains evergreen and the pure white flowers slowly fade to an antique ivory. Feed it rhododendron fertilizer every few weeks Gardenia jasminoides will bloom well into autumn.

Photo by Carl Lewis via Flickr

Flowering tobacco: Nicotiana alata is a common annual that looks “eh” all day. However, when it gets dark, the flowers open and give off a Hawaiian scent. It is easy to grow and thrives in barren, dry soils.

Photo by Dean Morley via Flickr

Night scent stick: This fast growing annual can still be started with seeds for the late summer scent that peaks at dusk.

Petunias: All smell heavier in the evening, but the “Supertunia” is extra intoxicating.

Courtesy of Amazon

The garden in every way and in every season by Tovah Martin

The Garden in All Senses and Seasons are Tovah Martin’s annual memoirs that record all four seasons in her garden by smell, taste, touch, sound and sight.

The point of view of the senses is new, and Martin’s conclusions suggest that she did the job. Your prose is gentle but thorough. This is not a list book; It is a book of close observation, filled with surprising attention to the smallest details that would be overlooked without mindfulness.

Martin offers Garden Zoom lectures on her website. The book is from Timber Press, $ 16.95.