It seems I’m being showered with lovely Holiday surprises. 5 of my poems have been accepted for inclusion on the website of THE NATURE OF OUR TIMES, in the company of such renowned poets as Jane Hirshfield and Terri Glass. https://natureofourtimes.poetsforscience.org/tag/janice-f-booth/
The Nature of Our Times
Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders
A companion to the First National Nature Assessment (NNA1), Forthcoming, Fall 2025 from Paloma Press, in collaboration with Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University and Poets for Science
We’re all a bit overheated now that summer has settled in. We wilt when we spend much time outside during the day, and our gardens are wilting a bit too. Don’t be too frustrated. There is a fresh approach to our beloved gardens now that the heat is on. Consider the evening hours when cooler, quiet breezes waft through. Perhaps you already have a “Night Garden.” Or maybe you can enhance some areas of your garden to create a garden to be enjoyed after dark.
Let’s consider (a) the definition of a Night or Moonbeam Garden, (b) the advantages of gardens and gardening after dark, (c) how to create or enhance your evening garden’s delights, and (d) mistakes to avoid in your Moonbeam Garden.
A Moonbeam Garden entices us out-of-doors once the sun has set. In these long days of summer heat and humidity, you may find untapped pleasures while wandering through your garden once night falls. After dark, temperatures drop, responsibilities diminish, and there is time to breathe and reflect. Your trees, flowerbeds, and paths may enhance your all-too-rare hours of reflection. It’s not too late in the season to add and relocate plants for just the serene and glowing experience a Moonbeam Garden can provide.
So, you may be thinking, is it worth the effort to make changes in my garden for those few hours of evening relaxation before I tumble into bed, exhausted by the day’s demands? Once you’ve spent an evening or two under the stars, I predict your response will be a resounding “Yes!”
There are three main advantages to gardening and gardens after dark:
After a day stuck inside our air-conditioned homes and offices, we’re able to step outside and enjoy the solace that nature and our gardens offer. Our Moonbeam Gardens encourage us and others to turn off the TV and the internet, and sit outdoors for a while listening and watching the natural world.
In our gardens, under the starlight, we won’t be tempted to pull those stray weeds or deadhead that brown marigold blossom. There’ll be no need to worry about the tasks—small or large—that confront us in our gardens during the hours of daylight. After dark, we can enjoy our flowers, trees, and other features guilt-free, without “To-do” lists at our elbows. Or, completing some of our gardening tasks in the cool of the evening might be just the ticket for a more satisfying means of handling summer gardening chores. Even watering, at ground level, is enhanced after dark. Be sure water does not remain on leaves.
After birds, bees, and butterflies have gone to rest, our night gardens are alive with nocturnal creatures. The frogs in their pond, the scurrying raccoon, and meandering deer may draw near. (I know…you’re probably thinking, “Yes, the mosquitoes will be out there too!” True, but we can take precautions to deal with mosquitoes. And, by the way, they’re pretty aggressive during the day, too.) Sitting on a bench in the moonlight may bring us closer to some of our four-legged neighbors.
How then can we easily create a Moonbeam Garden or enhance the Night Garden portion of the gardens we have at hand? There are three elements to consider:
Plants: Choose plants that reflect moonlight and release their fragrance and bloom after dark. For silvery foliage try Artemisa (Mugwort–too bad about that ugly name for a lovely plant), Painted Fern, Dusty Miller, and Lamb’s Ears. For fragrance try the Moonflower Vine, Casa Blanca Lily, Gardenia, Night Phlox, and Star Jasmine. After dark, these beauties show off their blossoms: Angel’s Trumpet, Pee Gee Hydrangea, Moonflower, Nicotiana, Night-Blooming Jasmine, Cleome, Sweet Autumn Clematis.
Accents: In addition to plants that are evening’s stand outs, we can add objects such as statues made of some white substances, perhaps a water feature if the garden doesn’t have one already; the sound of moving water is particularly relaxing after dark. Small lights that twinkle or glow without filling the area with light. A quiet, electric fan set low to the ground can enhance airflow and even blow away some of those pesky bugs that nibble on us at night.
Safety: An easy way to keep our gardens safe havens is to keep the paths safe. Use white pebbles on our paths to reflect whatever light sources are available. If your garden path is pavers or concrete, buy some reflective tape and cut small strips to attach to the pavers. Trim back plants that might impinge on paths or hang low overhead. Be sure you will be able to get back indoors after enjoying the garden; don’t lock yourself out of the house.
Finally, here are a few cautions when planning and enjoying our Moonbeam Gardens:
Think about your neighbors. Some of us have lots of privacy around our gardens, while some of us have neighbors’ bedroom windows and patios very close to our gardens. When creating or redesigning your garden for the evening hours, think about light and noise pollution. Direct any garden lighting so it is low and soft. We want the moonbeams and stars to take center stage anyway.
Be sure any electrical outlets or equipment is safely out of our way when we wander along the dark paths or sit on a bench or lawn chair. And, be sure that water cannot short-out your electric equipment. If our lights and pumps were a do-it-yourself project, we might bring in an electrician to check that there are no dangerous situations waiting to happen.
Keep a flashlight near a favorite bench or at the garden gate. Sometimes, even in the most familiar of places, we can become confused or noises may distract or worry us. Click on that flashlight to put ourselves at ease. The small creature will scurry, and the path we were looking for will become apparent.
As the summer slips away and autumn approaches, we may find ourselves counting the hours until the sunsets and we wander again through the garden beneath the moon and stars.
Friends, if you’re in Annapolis on October 26th please consider joining me and fellow poets for a free reading from our 2nd collection of poems, STILL SINGING: 6 Women Poets. The reading is at Old Fox Books on Maryland Ave. at 6pm. (There’ll be books for sale. )
Okay, I know we don’t need more stress right now. Our gardens are our stress-relievers, our source of peace in a world of struggles. I hate to interject a “call to arms,” but attention must be paid. Gardeners, man your weed-pullers and spades!
There are strong indications that over 100 invasive plants, commonly labeled “weeds,” will be expanding into the Eastern United States. More than 30 of those species are predicted to “wreak havoc” with our native plants. This migration of weeds to the East Coast is being attributed to climate change, according to a February 2024 article from the Weed Science Society of America (WSSA). Maryland’s own Native Plant Society shares the same concern. (See: mdflora.org/aboutinvasives.html)
So, I’ll discuss first the most common and serious invasive plants threatening the eco-balance in our region. Then, I’ll review a few of the often-overlooked indigenous plants that will flourish in our gardens. Some of them may be old friends.
Invasive Plants (aka weeds)
There are six categories: aquatic plants, herbs, grasses, shrubs, trees, and vines. The list below is not exhaustive. They’re weeds with which many of us are already familiar and may even have done battle.
1.Aquatic troublemakers in our ponds and streams: not an exhaustive list: water hyacinth; water clover; chickweed; fragrant waterlily (sorry, but you’ll have to keep a close eye on those lovely waterlilies in your pond—don’t let them escape into nearby creeks and streams); arrowhead (yes, those graceful wings-on-a-stem are trouble; and loosestrife.
2. Over-zealous herbs: If you’ve ever grown herbs, you’re already well aware of the impact of these hardy plants: yarrow (all varieties); maidenhair fern (sadly, they can get out-of-hand); garlic mustard and regular mustard; wild onion and wild garlic (stick to the grocer’s offerings if you want to avoid lots of weeding); alyssum; amaranth (yup, those lovely purple tufts are trouble); columbine; and wild celery.
3. Gorgeous but strong-willed grasses: I’ve written before about the difficulty of maintaining even a single specimen of some graceful grasses; well, here’s another problem with these beauties—they sneak out when you’re not looking, like a bunch of teenagers and find themselves where they don’t belong: wheat grass (popular for planting on beaches to control erosion because they spread tenaciously); bamboo (sneaky rhizomes spread everywhere just below the surface soil—you don’t realize where it’s wandered until it’s in your lawn and flowerbeds); sedge grass; pampas grass; and Mediterranean love grass (I know they’re not used much around here, but I love the name).
4. Sneaky (i.e. invasive) shrubs: There aren’t many, but, oh, dear, they are popular little guys: Japanese laurel (oh, yes. These guys tend to be the Sumo wrestlers of the shrub world); barberry ; boxwood (those sturdy, old shrubs introduced to the Colonies by the Brits, can be troublesome when they invade! Sound familiar?); cotoneaster; forsythia (our harbingers of spring are easy to propagate and quick to spread); beautybush; and privet.
5. Avoid planting these trees: They’re not good neighbors to our native species, but the good news might be that they don’t seem to thrive here either: several varieties of maples; hawthorns; eucalyptus; and Bradford pear (don’t be charmed by its pretty, spring blossoms).
6. Vines: I know you’re probably already well aware of how quickly vines “go walking.” Kudzu immediately comes to mind: bittersweet (not including our lovely American bittersweet which we all cherish); bindweed (more likely to be the bane of farmers than urban gardeners, but sometimes they do sneak in); English ivy (yes, I know it’s a staple in my garden plan too. But we have to keep it strictly under control so it doesn’t strangle trees and overshadow native flowers); morning-glory (most varieties only become destructive if they’re left too many seasons to their own devices—chop them back occasionally; jasmine (that intoxicating fragrance makes them tough to eliminate); and wisteria (yes, I fell under this tough fella’s spell, and now I have a huge, beautiful arbor vine that dares me to keep it trimmed! And its suckers show up everywhere!)
And there you have it…some of the most unwanted invaders. But to end on a happy note, here are some lovely native or indigenous plants you might welcome into your garden.
Let’s begin with those tall, elegant showstoppers, Cardinal flowers. They’re perennial and can tolerate partial shade.
All year long you can enjoy evergreen wood fern. There are lots of subgroups, but they all have those elegant fronds in subtly different colors.
Another old favorite is the lady fern. Also an evergreen plant, its delicate fronds soften your woodland and shady garden areas.
Creeping phlox are that beautiful blooming groundcover that spills over rock walls and softens our flowerbeds. It’s a native perennial, so it will keep producing its color and fragrance year-after-year.
And finally, a personal favorite, the obedient plant. This quiet darling is just as dear as its name. With pink and lavender blossoming heads, they return season-after-season, easily adjust to moves, and stay where they’re planted—obediently.
I’m confident that we, gardeners, will do what we can, each in our own way, to support and protect nature’s beauty. We may allow some of these outcasts into our gardens, but we won’t let them overtake our native plants.
Opening Lines 