Mister Moonlight

. . . . Even full moonllight bathes the garden with only about one-half-millionth as much light as sunlight. This darkness brings subtle changes in our perceptions of the garden. There's not enough moonlight to activate the color sensing cones in our eyes, so the same garden that is in Technicolor in afternoon is in black and white at night. Not that it is any less appealing: What it lacks in colorful fun it gains in quiet elegance.
. . . . Without the distraction of color, mass and form are what catch our attention in the night garden. Forsythia, rhododendron, lilac and other shrubs that are dense with leaves take on a bold presence at night, joining other amorphous masses. . . . Walls and trees--every dense, three-dimensional form, in fact--also take on a bold presence in the silvery moonlight. Their forms might suggest alien creatures. They might guide our eyes or feet along in the dim lilght. And they might offer an earthbound anchor from night's awesome "big sky." . . . . For relief, step out into the moonlit garden and be greeted by serene, static masses. . . . everything visible in the moonlit garden seems larger than it does by day. By night, butterfly bushes will seem ready to embrace or envelop from all sides; an arbored entranceway to a vegetable garden feels like it towers overhead at night. . . . Among night's most hauntingly beautiful flowers are those whose pale trumpet shapes attract the pollinating bats and moths that go about their work only at night. Like their pollinators, some varieties of these flowers . . . open only at night, shyly folding up each morning. . . . The sweet fragrances wafted into the air by many night bloomers strengthen their allure to bats and moths. The perfumes alone might be sufficient enticement to bring you out into the garden at night, to enjoy, even in the absence of moonlight.
- - - -by Lee Reich of the Associated Press, in SF Chronicle Wed Aug. 24, 2009