Night Garden at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

The night garden-blooming day lilies belong in every garden. Unlike others in the clan, these flowers open at dusk and remain fresh throughout the night garden. In our garden buds begin to swell about 6:00 P.M. and are wide open by 7:30. Hemerocallis citrina is the best of them all. Its 3 1/2-foot-long leaves are lightly crinkled along the edge, and gracefully bend to form a fountain of green. Many lemon-yellow flowers, most 6 inches long, bloom on 4-foot stalks. The fragrance is very sweet. The sphinx moths that delight in the dark visit these flowers night garden after night garden and the hummingbirds follow in the morning until the blossoms fade about 10:00 A.M. Plants produce blossoms over a period of three to four weeks starting at the end of July.

I compromised by setting the flower in the rock garden during the day and moving it to the Garage at night garden. This did cause a bit of a problem in the morning necessitated by opening the door and all that such an act implies. Visitors to the garden did not know quite what to say about the giant maroon and leathery appurtenance set amid the blooming plants of the rock garden so they avoided all mention, which is fairly hard to do with a plant now 4 feet high and surmounted by buzzing flies.

Flowering tobacco plants come in both day-flowering species, including the very large tobacco plant (Nicotiana Tabacum) of the annual garden (see page 24) and the following night garden-bloomers for the evening garden. All are treated as annuals with seeds started indoors six weeks before the last spring frost. Plants like a good garden soil liberally laced with compost or manure, and a location either in full sun or partial shade. Set them 1 foot apart. All do well when grown in 12-inch pots on the terrace, as long as they get plenty of water. Space plants 1 foot apart in the garden.