Water Garden!

   I love a good night garden as well as I do a lovely day garden.  Plants that bloom only during the dark hours have a certain mystique about them.  Lately, I find myself trying to find and plant more of these beauties even though not much time is spent outdoors late in the evening.  Still, with the windows open, the aromas waft through on the soft bay breezes making me fully aware of their presence.  Plants such as the night-blooming cereus, four o'clock and evening primrose are all highly scented and can make your senses tingle with excitement just knowing the plants are in bloom.

  While this is all fine and dandy, those plants that only bloom during the daylight hours seem to lose a lot of that allure except when they are spontaneous blooms that catch you off-guard.  Only occasionally, am I sure just when I will find the lovely water lilies in bloom.  These pop up, bloom and then close at dusk.  The lovely blooms will reopen up to four days then will slowly sink to the bottom of the pond.  These lilies seem as magical as the night-bloomers simply because of the unexpected showing.  It is also a fun idea to have something bright and pretty in the middle of a Frog Pond!

  Now I find myself on the search for a night-blooming variety of water lily for the small Frog Pond or Puddle Pond.  Both have day-blooming lilies and water hyacinths but the addition of a few night-blooming lilies would be nice.  Son has been trying to get me to thin my collection of tropical plants that need to be moved into the greenhouse each winter so maybe I can fill the ponds with the tropical lilies and appease him.  He is not a fan of hauling in the hundred or so huge potted plants each year.  Water lilies just sit tight until the next spring so that should make both of us happy.