This post is for my friend Diana, who once coaxed a moonflower to the brink of bloom last year only to have it wither on the vine a day or two before blossoming. That kind of heartache is a blow to even the most seasoned of gardeners, but I’m happy to see that this year she’s had several big blooms to make up for it.
I happened upon this particularly robust moonflower vine the last time I was in Boston. Paired with a traditional old-fashioned morning glory, it makes for a full day of flowers: there are early blue blooms at the break of day, and these wonderful white beacons in the afternoon and evening.
They have a very delicate fragrance that becomes slightly more pronounced in the evening, but this is one flower that doesn’t shout its presence out with vulgar lily-like bombast. It whispers. Evokes. Sighs.
This is how we say goodbye to summer.
