Night-blooming plants in my garden

I’ve not had the time to blog enough here as I like, and have not had the creative streak that enabled me to begin this blog in the first place so I may take a little leave after this post to recollect my thoughts.

Anyhow, the night-blooming plants in my container garden include Brugmansia sp., Brunfelsia gigantea, Cestrum nocturnum, Epiphyllum oxpetalum ‘Mark Twain’, and Hylocereus undatus. While it is nearly impossible to get them to all bloom together, the Brunfelsia and Cestrum fragrances often commingle, and while I’m still waiting for my Brugmansia to open that one shall surely add a sinister note to the overwhelming musky perfume of my night blooming garden! When my night-blooming cacti bloom, Epiphyllum oxpetalum is the one with the more powerful fragrance, and it disperses this fragrance much more freely than did Hylocereus undatus. Night blooming flowers truly are a magical thing!

Night-Fragrant Annuals pt 1. Petunia and Stocks

Petunia ‘Dreams White’. http://www.parkswholesaleplants.com

While many of the fragrant annuals grown are most know for their fragrance during the day, a few are particularly know for their night fragrance. Petunias have the luck of being fragrant both at night and day, but the fragrances are completely different between the two. The purple petunias of day have a nice warm fragrance, almost like daylilies, but with a sinister kick that resides in all solanaceous plants; But at night, this fragrance is akin more to clove. This fragrance is so pervasive that entire garden centers and lawns at evening are reminiscent of fine clove wherever they are grown in abundance! The white petunias are freest with the clove fragrance, all others less free and with a bit more floral in them.Petunias are easily the most well-known and widely grown fragrant annual of the night, and its clove-scent pierces its  surroundings, even on dark, cloudy days, and in a way that would make pure night-fragrant plants jealous.

Petunias are widespread and easily grown as an annual, and the wave series surely adorns every hanging basket in the Eastern United States! Petunias require little, except well-drained soil, full sun, and plenty of fertilizer. They also require deadheading for a true all-summer display. Who would have ever thought, a dowdy tobacco relative from South America would be brought from obscurity to be such a popular garden plant? Well, too many relatives of them have been to be honest…but that’s beside the point.

Other widely grown petunias besides the wave series have been supertunias, multifloras and grandifloras, but each hybrid has its own perk. Related Calibrachoa, although similar in look, have little to no fragrance in them.

Matthiola longipetala. 6, December, 2006. Al-Bargit. Wikimedia Commons.

Another commonly grown night-blooming (or at least night-fragrant) annual is stocks. Stocks are best known as fillers in cut-flower arrangements, where both day and night-fragrant species are used. Stocks are Mustard family relatives, native to the Northern Hemisphere, and grown outdoors in cool gardens in the Northern European and Northern American reaches. Otherwise, they are grown as short annuals in early spring or early to late fall in warmer climates.

M. incana and M. longipetala are the species best represented in the garden and as cut flowers. M. incana hybrids are known for having double flowers, but the true to type species and the one that survives and reproduces is the single. These are better cut flowers, and are fragrant during the day as well. The single species is mostly white-flowered. M. longipetala is a better garden plant, but is true to type in being evening and night-fragrant only. The flowers of these are purplish, and appear wilted in strong sunlight. M. longipetala also tends to bloom for a longer period than the ’10-weeks stock’ M. incana. Both feature a nice, clove-like, sweet fragrance at evening, strongly reminiscent of pinks and carnations.

 

Night-Fragrant Flowers, An Introduction

Epiphyllum oxypetalum. MAK, Wing Kuen. Wikimedia Commons.

‘The true vesper flowers, those that withhold their sweetness from the day and give it freely to the night are rather a curious company. Few have any daytime attractions…But with twilight comes an extraordinary change.’ The Fragrant Path, Louise Beebe Wilder.

In the plant world there is a certain sweetness that comes with vespertine air- a scent all too unfamiliar to the world of the light, but familiar to that of the night. A sweetness beyond expectation that rarefies the cool dark air, calling forth night creatures to drink in the dark, an ambrosia by moonlight. A scent that only moths and bats will find edifying in the deep darkness, a flower from which a musty scent pours forth. Indeed, the midnight air is the rarest of scents, as it is the one least sampled to the human nose.

To tell the truth, many flowers are night scented, from daphne to lily, jasmine to tuberose. However, many of the former are fragrant by day as well, and even open during it. True vespertine flowers are only identifiable at twilight, and redolent by dark fall. Of the most common are flowering tobacco, followed by Angel’s trumpet and night-jasmine- all others are either too uncommon, or scented as well on darker days. But to the night, these flowers call forth, haunting as a silent witness to the floral wonders of the world. Only a certain few astound and amaze, but all stand as a guardian, a watch in the night.