A Bloom!

My garden is definitely taking its last breaths of 2012, but I woke up one rainy morning last week to find a beautiful surprise: A moonflower had bloomed on my trellis!

In the spring, I planted my morning glory seeds, as well as some moonflower seeds. The plants' vines are similar, so I didn't even think a moonflower seed had taken, but I guess it did. This garden gets a lot of sun and is drier, so my morning glories seem to take longer to grow and bloom, but I try year after year, anyway, and by the end of summer I usually have beautiful blue flowers greeting me each morning.

And despite trying to grow a moonflower in the past, this was the first year I was successful.

The bloom wasn't even completely open, but I made sure to snap a photo -- and run outside to sniff its heavenly fragrance! It smells so incredibly lovely. The bloom is so much larger than a morning glory, and so angelic looking.

Despite being late in the season, and having some cold nights, this little bloom managed to open and surprise me. But better late than never, right?

This moonflower sighting inspired me to do some research. Here's a link to 10 plants which only bloom at night, including the moonflower. You'll notice many of them are white -- how nice would it be to plant an all-white "moon" garden? The white flowers would glow in the moonlight. One of the popular garden centers near my home has always had a white garden -- this link has information on its garden and plants to buy for your very own white garden. I've always wanted to stroll on that property at dusk and see if the garden does indeed glow.

Apparently moon gardens are growing in popularity, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal. (It's interesting what you can find out when you start Googling for a blog post!) Perhaps I need to start my own little moon garden in my backyard. I would definitely add little solar lights, a few white statues and a bench, to sit under the moon and watch the fireflies in the summer. Maybe next year? :)