The Moon Garden

What is the Moon Garden?

The Moon Garden is a garden that only exists in the dark. It is hidden behind a high stone wall. One night, the little plant on Vela’s windowsill grew and grew, into a tall green gate.

The Moon Garden is kept by Old Thimble, a hedgehog in a patched apron.

What grows there?

Silver lilies tip their cups up to the moon. Pale blue bells sway. Little white star-flowers glow along the vines. Moths flutter by, and a beetle polishes its shell.

And in the middle of it all is the Moonflower. It blooms only once a year, at the stroke of midnight. On the twelfth chime, it opens like a small moon come down to rest in the garden.

When can you visit?

The Moon Garden is only open from eleven o’clock to twelve o’clock in the night, and not one minute more.

What are the rules of the garden?

If the Moonflower does not bloom by midnight, the whole garden falls asleep for a year. Bright light makes the night flowers snap shut. And a flower that is pulled open is torn, and never blooms.

In the Moon Garden, the best thing you can do is be patient, and gentle, and kind.

Try this tonight

If you could plant a flower that only blooms in the dark, what colour would it be? Tell someone, then dream about it.