The other day Helen the Patient Gardener wrote about realizing she had chosen a huge amount plants with white flowers; I commented that maybe she had subconsciously known that she would mainly see her garden when she arrived home from work and that white flowers add something very special to the garden as the light fails. White becomes luminous.
This evening I arrived home just before that moment; but with a Campari and the new issue of my Italian gardening magazine (yes, it arrived on the 8th of the month!) I sat enjoying the last rays of the sun and watched as most flowers lost their colour to the dusk, but White Dream Tulips in the central beds shone as if each had a light bulb inside it. Other white flowers also glowed: Choisya ternate, Convolvulus cneorum, a crab apple that didn’t flower at all last year is covered with delicate blooms that promise a good amount of fruit in the autumn (NO, I’m not wishing away spring and summer!) and in the background of one of the images I spotted the first flowers of Viburnum mariesii, that also didn’t seem to flower last year, but maybe I missed it. It has grown enormously in the 3 years since I planted. I love the form of its layered branches and the beautiful pleated leaves as they open, it was a present from my mother in law and I think of her whenever I look at this part of the garden, under the white mulberry, as she very generously bought all the plants for this difficult dry, shady situation.
Formal beds with Tulip White Dream, you can just see the Choisya
Convolvulus cneorum
Crab Apple
Viburnum mariesii is top right in the image
On Wordless Wednesday I posted about Tulip Brown Sugar, sadly with the very hot weather we’ve been having and the gale force winds it is already going over, but a lovely discovery is that it also dies beautifully – always an added bonus in a flower.
Tulip Brown Sugar
I hope you are able to enjoy your garden at dusk and I hope you have at least a few white blooms to illuminate the garden.
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Christina.
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Content created by Christina for
My Hesperides Garden.
Creating my own garden of the Hesperides 
Lovely – I have some white narcissus this year, and I love the way they sing out in the evening light. Sadly my other white flowers have all failed to germinate, so the frothy white river that was going to knit my garden together is going to remain a dream. I have some Nicotina but it won’t enjoy the shade.
It’s very sad about your white flowers failing to germinate. As we are outside often in the evening I feel I need more white, I think the Gaura closes at night and so doesn’t really count. I need to think of some hights for near the terrace or even something climbing????? any suggestions? Christina
How about Cleome? Very statuesque. And Nicotiana sylvestris is a lovely evening/night flower, also very tall, and you could add some white Nigella? There are some beautiful white clematis too, I used to grow “Miss Bateman”, stunning large white flowers, I miss her – she died on me.
Cleome is a great idea, I remember getting seeds from a plant at Cliveden many years ago. Clematis are just a dream, they need too much water. Armandii is OK and gets some water as I irrigate the roses around the pillars. I suppose I could try. 2 minutes ago I heard that a clematis nursery has opened in the region, not that close but possible! so who knows? Christina
I very much enjoy the pale/white in evening light – the bed next to our terrace is planted along these lines too. But your white tulips are a triumph.
I have a white solanum for later/climbing white colour. Your garden seems to be at least one week ahead of mine – I will try to post some photos this weekend. I must get a viburnum mariesii as I always have appreciated its layered look but never see it for sale around here.
Y
The only plant that was already planted here was a solanum jaminoides which flowers from June until December. I took cuttings last autumn and have planted the new plants on the slope to, I hope, create a white froth flowing down the slope. I bought the Mariesii from Michelini, the only good viviao around here. Christina
Just beautiful! White flowers are so lovely in the twilight. We have some N. Thalia that we enjoy, both for their fragrance and their luminescence.
I like T. Brown Sugar. I have not run into that one before.
Thank you for sharing!
Julie
Thank you, Julie. I am a new fan of Brown Sugar.
Where is the new clematis nursery?!
And where is Michelini?
Y
Michellini is on the Teverina in Viterbo and I’ll send you the link to the clematis nursery.
I think you are right. I remember now that I had been noticing that the white flowers shone into the dusk and I suspect this was in my sub-conscious when I was ordering seeds.
Funnily I have discovered more white flowers in the garden today!
White is so beautiful in the dusk.I am already impatient to see the white globes of Allium Everest in the dark border. My white tulips are just beginning. Yours are stunning.
Brown Sugar just gets better!
I have some large white alliums this year, I’m looking forward to them, the basal leaves look big so hopefully the flowers should be big too.
That is just breathtaking! Beautiful combination of silver leaves and white tulips! Wow! Thank you for sharing your beautiful garden!