Clean as evergreen with a spoonful of sugar on its breath

September 7, 2024 5:54 AM

For several seasons, I have been making surprising discoveries in the dark, surrounded by animals that rise with the moon—creatures such as owls, salamanders, and glowworms. Is there anything more moving than awaking to wonders that you have been wandering among all your life unaware? Is there anything more hopeful than realizing that you’ve always been surrounded by sublime scenes, even when you were living through days and weeks and months full of despair? Once you’ve brushed against night’s magic, it’s hard not to yearn for more of the shimmering life that seems to reside in all the darkest places.

Author Leigh Ann Henion experiences the marvel that is night-blooming tobacco and shows how easy it is to reveal and revel in the fact of our ecological being.
posted by criticalyeast (3 comments total)

This brought back a memory I hadn't thought about in years.

I was taken to visit an older woman living in a rural are outside of Pittsburgh. I don't remember who she was (a great aunt?) or what she looked like (except a shapeless patterned long dress, swollen feet in old lady shoes), but she gave me fresh squeezed sour lemonade. I was old enough to help mix lemonade, but I thought it came powdered in a can and cloyingly sweet.

She encouraged me to go outside at dusk and walk in her "Moon Garden". She was pretty old and stooped, and the garden was unkempt, but the scent was heavenly. After encountering different flowers later, I'm pretty sure she had stocks, moonflower, phlox, 4 o'clocks, wisteria, and of course nicotiana. The two that impressed me the most were a white rose (probably an alba heirloom), that one scratched me bloody, and the honeysuckle, because she showed me how to suck the 'honey' out of the end of the flower.

I've grown stocks, moonflower, phlox and four o'clocks, but never grew nicotiana, because tobacco mosaic virus is an issue here. I wonder if it would be worth it to keep the tomatoes in the back and plant nicotiana in the front to smell that fragrance just once more in my older age.
posted by BlueHorse at 1:17 PM on September 7 [4 favorites]

That was lovely. I am lucky to live in a place where I can go out walking after dark without much light pollution. I enjoy the night sky and the fireflies, but didn't really think to notice the scent of the air that is unique to the night. And I never thought about night-blooming flowers! I will have to plant some next spring.

It makes me sad when the neighbors leave outdoor flood lights on all night, or install those damned motion-activated ones. I am glad that light pollution is getting some attention now.

Sometimes guests to my place walk around here at night with flashlights or headlamps. This is also sad - to be walking in a little cone of light that obscures all that is around you! Sometimes I can convince them to turn off the light and wait for their night vision to take over. It is so much more fun walking in the dark that way.

Thank you for the lovely essay.
posted by evilmomlady at 2:10 PM on September 7 [1 favorite]

That is an enchanting article, and is full of things I didn’t know

These gardens enjoyed a surge of interest during the pandemic, when people were stuck at home in search of nightly entertainment, but they were also popular in Victorian times, when households were beginning to transition from candles and lanterns to electricity.

And I didn’t know primroses were night bloomers, that people chose silver leaved and stemmed plants for the sake of moon glow, or that human odor sensitivity peaks around 9:00 PM, and I certainly did not realize that my parents, as they offered me cigarettes and beer when I was 12, might well have been acting out deep seated cultural traditions.
posted by jamjam at 2:12 PM on September 7 [1 favorite]