Oh, Mr. Moon, won’t you please shine down on my garden of night-blooming flowers?

Moon gardens give the landscape extended hours of beauty and fragrance. White flowers and the lighter colors of variegated plants seem to glow at dusk casting a mystical feel to the landscape and encouraging outdoor activities in the cool of an evening.

These flowers — and the night-flying insects that love them — may even attract bats to the garden scape, providing squads of mosquito patrols. Extension publications reference that six to eight bats may consume 10,000 flying insects each night. While you slumber, these little flying mammals are protecting plants from pests and reducing the need for insecticides.

Bats also need a source of shelter such as hollow tree limbs or eaves of outbuildings to nest. Staging a bat house in a wooded area tends to make permanent lodging arrangements easier. Providing a water source that entices insects also attracts a bat’s attention during the wee hours.

As the sun sets, moon garden plants turn on their flower shine just as the day’s warmth is ebbing. Plan for comfortable sitting arrangements in your garden for enjoying all phases of the moon, the sweet scents that stir with the breeze and the winged “acroBATics” show. Try these traditional plants in your own garden.

Flowering tobacco (white shooting stars) is both showy and strongly fragrant, blooming from June until frost. Sow seeds outdoors in a sunny location at this time of year. Butterflies and hummingbirds enjoy the star-shaped, greenish white trumpet flowers of this tall plant. Deadhead spent stalks to encourage reblooming. Grown as an annual, Nicotiana sylvestris will self-seed for next year’s scented crop.

The moonflower (Ipomoea alba) is as eye-catching cascading over hardscape as it is adorning the garden trellis. Sweet-scented nocturnal flowers unfold in early evening and remain open all night only to close before noon the next day. Seeds germinate easily with notching and soaking overnight. Rarely seen night-flying moths are sure to hover for a treat from the white flowers, but deer tend to avoid this vine.

Four-o-clocks are traditional garden favorites, especially for birds and butterflies. The white flowering Mirabilis jalapa is perfect for your moon garden, opening late afternoon until the following morning. The tubular-shaped flowers are fragrant; blossoms often vary in color on the same plant. Collect the hard, black seeds at season’s end for multi-year enjoyment. (Beware this plant has toxic elements.)

June is the perfect time to both work and enjoy the glow of the Full Rose (Strawberry) Moon in your garden. Contact your local extension office with any moon garden questions you may have.

Kristi Hendricks is a graduate of Shepherd College and West Virginia University and a Master Gardener with the Virginia Cooperative Extension. She can be reached at belowthejames@yahoo.com.