White flowers are most successful in evening gardens where they remain visible long after other colours have faded. Cream, lemon and pale pink flowers and light-coloured foliage are also useful for lighting up dark corners, remaining visible long after darker shades have merged with the shadows.
Gaura lindheimeri
The twilight garden can be attractive in spring with white flowering cherry, September bells (Rothmannia globosa), azalea, foxglove, iris, magnolia, narcissi, viburnum, and climbers Clematis montana and white wisteria.
In summer, the garden is a most pleasant place in which to relax when the heat of the day has passed. White flowers for the summer garden include agapanthus of varying heights, arum, mophead hydrangea, oak-leafed Hydrangea quercifolia with white panicles of flowers, and Hydrangea paniculata with cone-shaped flower heads that fade to dusty pink.
Gaura lindheimeri
For the back of a border, plant tall white liliums and the sweetly scented Nicotiana sylvestris with clusters of trumpet-shaped blooms. Roses, dahlias, alstroemerias, Marguerite daisy bushes and Shasta daisies are suitable for the centre of the border, with fillers of gaura with its butterfly-like blooms, and frothy gypsophila. Grow white
New Guinea impatiens in shady areas. Bulbs with white flowers include the pendant bells of the Berg lily (galtonia) and fragrant pink and white tuberose.
In autumn there is white alyssum, cosmos, dahlia, dianthus, white sasanqua camellia, chrysanthemum, nicotiana, roses and white and lemon petunias.
In an evening garden, the foliage of caladium, variegated hibiscus and hosta show up well, as do silver and grey foliage plants of Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’,Festuca glauca ‘Silver Eyecatch’, Helichrysum petiolare, lamb’s ears (stachys), lavender, Lamium maculatum ‘Beacon Silver’ and santolina.
Shrubs suitable for the twilight garden are the ‘alba’ form of plumbago, spring- to summer-flowering African dog rose (Xylotheca kraussiana), Freylinia alba, an evergreen shrub with small white flowers, Bauhinia natalensis with white bell-like flowers, and the silver leaves and clusters of dainty white flowers of Gomphostigma virgatum.
Dianthus
