What Makes a Moon Garden?<\/b><\/h3>\n
If you’ve ever spent a night camping in the forest, you know how nighttime opens up a whole other natural world. Fireflies flash in the meadow, bats hunt over the lake, and even a flowing creek seems to speak a different language. Well, you may be surprised to learn that something similar happens in your garden while you sleep. When you intentionally cultivate a nighttime garden for yourself or the nocturnal pollinators to enjoy, you create a moon garden.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n As a relatively new and unexplored practice, there are no hard and fast rules for creating a moon garden, and the entire process is open to experimentation and discovery. However, here are a few suggestions to help you create an alluring and creative nighttime ambiance in your garden:\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n <\/b> Besides the bees, hummingbirds, and <\/span>butterflies<\/span><\/a><\/span> that frequent our gardens during the day, there is a whole other cast of creatures that visit us at night. Although more mysterious and unknown, these nocturnal pollinators are just as important to our local ecosystems as the daytime ones, and include fireflies, bats, and thousands of species of moths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Moths, fireflies, and other nighttime pollinators need darkness to mate, see each other, and go about their life. Moths easily get confused and trapped in the glow of artificial lights, and our street and porch lights can actually kill thousands of moths every night, so simply turning off your lights goes a long way to protecting nighttime pollinators.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Besides that, the same gardening practices for fostering day pollinators apply to night ones. For example, cultivate blooms throughout the whole season, grow a variety of flower types, let a corner of your yard go wild, and do insect-wise spring and fall clean-ups.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Most of us daytime dwellers haven’t explored the night much, or even imagined that it offered something to explore in the first place. However, if you’re willing to step into the darkness, a whole new moonlit and star-filled world appears, one that’s alive with mysterious insects and filled with the delicate scent of flowers in the cool nighttime air. Even better, this magical world is living quietly right in our backyards!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For more tips and inspiration for <\/span>cultivating your moon garden<\/span><\/a><\/span>, please visit us at our garden centers in Bloomingdale and Carpentersville!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\nHow to Create a Moon Garden in Illinois\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n
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<\/b><\/h3>\nWhich Nocturnal Pollinators Visit a Moon Garden?<\/b><\/h3>\n
How Do I Cultivate Night Pollinator Habitats in My Illinois Garden?<\/b><\/h3>\n
New Possibilities Beneath the Moon\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n
Platt Hill Nursery is Chicago\u2019s premier garden center and nursery.<\/span><\/i><\/h4>\n
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