Seeking the Night Garden's Secret.

‘Your garden is very beautiful,’ said Mel when she came over for a visit on Sunday. I explained that my garden looks at its best during the day when the sun shines, but it feels at its best during twilight when the polarity is switching from the yang of day to the yin of night – when the moths take over from the butterflies and bees, and the bats relieve the birds in the sky overhead.

Respect and adoration for the power of the night garden is nothing new, of course. Poets have written about it, singers have sung about it, and composers have serenaded it with beautiful music. But I still have to make my own sense of it.

It’s as though the plants are absorbing some natural energy during the day and exulting in their own rampant beauty, and then releasing it at night to wash the air with its essence. And maybe some of us are sensitive enough to feel that essence.

So am I being fanciful? It’s a question I ask myself often and I never know the answer. Maybe it’s all to do with carbon dioxide, or maybe it’s to do with something the materialistic discipline of science hasn’t quite got to grips with yet. How can I know? All I know is that it feels like magic to me.