In The Moon Garden

I recently enjoyed a summer evening dining in a friend's garden. I loved the way the moon cast a spotlight of shadows, capturing a mood with white flowers and shimmery plants -- shining amongst the greenery. Nightfall ushered in entirely new and intoxicating sights and fragrances. Some flowers were shut tight sleeping, while others opened in full bloom. There's something mystical and romantic about walking through a garden on a summer evening.

What is a night garden?


A night garden incorporates plantings whose color, texture, sound, and scent can be appreciated in the evening. Sometimes night gardens are called “Moon Gardens.”

Are night gardens new?


According to this article, night gardens have been around for a long time:

“A night garden is not new to the contemporary world. Moonlight gardens were planted in medieval Japan using white or pale-colored rocks and sand. Pools of water caught the shine of the moon and white chrysanthemums cast a ghostly profile. In the 1600s India’s mogul emperor planted a stunning night blooming garden using fragrant and beautiful flowers like jasmine, narcissus, and lilies all in white.”

What to plant in a night garden?


DoItYourself lists night bloomers and aromatic plants to set your garden aglow.

Photos: Garden Guides, Planting Seeds and Miss Wallflower

DIY: Mason Jar Wall Planter

I love the cool, crisp mornings we've just begun to experience here in the Northeast. Fall is in the air and that puts me in the nesting mood to create craft projects to warm up my home. This in-between season leaves me savoring the last greens of summer before the oranges and browns take over the foliage. I love this Mason Jar Wall Planter that CRAFT posted from Not Just a Housewife. It creates a wall of bursting green plants. It’s simple, sturdy and great for hanging vine plants and bringing in a few herbs and spices from the kitchen garden before the first frost (gasp).

Do you know about CRAFT? Their goal is to unite, inspire, inform, and entertain a community of highly imaginative and resourceful people who undertake amazing crafting projects. I look forward to their updates in my inbox each morning. The quirkiness and the diverse array of projects from all over the web makes CRAFT a worthy daily read.

In the mood for more fall DIY? Check out these 3 Fabulous DIY Fall Projects For The Home and 5 Fall Plants To Plant and 5 (more) Fall Projects To Make.

Cutting Edge: Woodland Topiary

The gardens that surround my home are woodsy, indigenous, perennial-laden (thank goodness), and at the moment gushing over with foliage and fresh blooms. While colorful and overabundant might be used to describe the lush rural garden, there's nothing remotely sculpted (hardly trimmed) to provide me with any reference about the art of topiary gardening. So, when I interviewed landscaper, Keith Buesing who is known for his topiary skills for this article, I didn't know quite what to expect. In fact, when I started to research topiary gardens, they appeared a bit fussy and over-managed for my tastes.

When I strolled around the landscaper’s property, I almost missed the garden stone and plant embellishments that layered soulfully into the natural setting. Buesing considers his property the “lab” where he “transforms the land and permeates ideas.”

Buesing is the local go-to guy if you want large garden topiary installations.

Let's backtrack just a bit: For those of you unfamiliar with topiary, it is the horticultural art of training perennial plants by clipping and pruning them into a living sculpture. The first topiaries were said to have been in Roman gardens more than 2,000 years ago. Topiaries can be both fancifully witty and classically formal.

Much to the delight of Buesing's community - Gardiner, NY, he has transformed the lawn of the library with a giant green lizard reading a stone book inscribed with the words "Love, Lizard, Life, Lapidary." He also tends to a “Stegodile” - a croc that has taken on the characteristics of a Stegosaurus. The installation miraculously changed a busy, mundane state highway intersection into anything but ordinary.

It was obvious to me that in his own rustic retreat, the seemingly laid-back Buesing favors a relaxed environment. When I asked him what he was currently working on, I expected a description of a dense, mossy mountainside hide-away garden. Instead, Buesing is working on a formal English garden. Since Buesing is such a versatile landscaper, I have no doubt that meticulously edged hedges, spiral topiary, and walled gardens are totally within his realm.

Buesing has shown me that dramatic installations can be a part of a woodland retreat. Off to get boxwood…

Photos: Juliet R. Harrison Photography

DIY Eco-Gift For The Worker On Your Holiday List

What's a worker with an eco-conscious to do when each day you look over your computer, and notice the wastebasket of your officemate fill up with crumpled paper, junk mail, faxes, post-its, newspapers and plastic water bottles?

The new year is the perfect occasion (excuse) to deploy an eco-agenda on a work space. Want to give a satisfying gift? Give a worker something that gives a green nod to the planet.

Do you know someone who uses a number-a-day calendar? Those calendars throw out 365 sheets of paper a year, and continue the cycle of paper waste.

Give an EcoBotanical Calendar and ring in a sustainable new year. Print 12 plantable pages made from 100% post-consumer waste and soy or veg-based inks. When the month passes, your office worker can plant the seed infused page outside the office window and enjoy the view - wildflowers instead of a mountain of landfill waste.

CLICK HERE for 15 ways to curb office waste.

Photos: Botanical Paperworks

DIY Eco-Gifts For The Organic Gardener On Your Holiday List

"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues." ~ The Lorax

We all know what happened in Dr. Seuss' The Lorax…the Once-ler devised ways of cutting down Truffula Trees for the "Biggering and Biggering" of his manufacturing operation. The Once-ler "Biggered" to the point where he polluted the Lorax's water and air, and left him in a sunless panorama of Truffula stumps. Poor Lorax.

You are luckier than the Lorax, right? Maybe that's because you have an organic gardener on your holiday list. These eco-champions use their big green thumbs to stand up against ecological destruction. Gardening without harmful chemicals is their motto. Raising environmental awareness and creating and maintaining healthy ecosystems are their mission.

DIY Gifts For Organic Gardeners

Give An Organic Plant Truffala Trees withstanding, Charlie Nardozzi of the The Organic Authority suggests you look beyond poinsettias and give an unusual organic plant.

Plant it Green Use organic soil and newspaper to make these (super easy) DIY Seedling Cups.

Wrap It Green Ditch the non-recyclable shiny foil wrapping paper. My mom often wrapped our gifts in the comics section of the newspaper. Who knows, maybe that's why I like kids books so much. I also like using pieces of cloth scraps to wrap small gifts. Martha talks about how traditional wrapping of plants detracts from their "earthy beauty" here.

Gardening Bucket Make a Gardener's Bucket and enclose a copy or a quote from The Lorax:

"Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care. Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air. Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack. Then the Lorax 
and all of his friends 
may come back."