When we built an addition to our 18th-century clapboard house and I looked out our new bedroom window, I recognized an opportunity to create a garden viewed from above that would offer cheer in every season and extend visual interest into the evening. It was a perfect spot for a moon garden: a garden of white flowers and foliage designed to be visible all evening. But because all good gardeners extract ideas from visits to great gardens and adapt them to their own landscape, I am not afraid to admit that I shamelessly stole the idea of using yellow-foliaged evergreens (or should they be called “evergolds”?) for my “moon” garden from a visit to Crathes Castle in Scotland.

The extensive gardens there are all magnificent, but I was captivated by one special space called the Golden Garden. As I entered this garden room sur­rounded by beautiful yellow and gold conifers, I felt as if I had walked into warm sunshine right out of the gray Scottish mists. My farmhouse is no castle and our Connecticut climate is less than ideal, but this was a clear case where inspiration presented the perfect design solution.

Most of the conifers with standout shapes and glowing foliage at Crathes Castle wouldn’t survive our winters, so I selected hardy substitutes: species and cultivars that would brighten the scene well into the evening and warm the cold, dark season with a consistent backbone of glowing shrubs arranged in a distinctive plan.

The area where I planned to build this garden allowed for a symmetrical design with ample space defined on one side by the straight stone wall of my rose garden. A split-rail fence runs at right angles from this wall, and a young oak tree stands near it, aligned with the end of our house. A new section of split-rail fence ties the oak tree to the corner of the house, creating a rectangle roughly 75 feet long and 30 feet wide.

I considered planting along the outer edges of this space, but I decided it would be more interesting to divide it into two distinct areas to create the illusion of a larger space. A walk through intimate yet connected areas also adds the sense of journey and drama that enhances an outdoor experience.

I call this garden my “moon garden” because I most often view it by the light of the moon. Perhaps it should have been called the “sun garden” with its shades of chartreuse, yellow, and gold. When I awake in the morning, the golden foliage evokes the sun, a particularly pleasing effect during the dark days of winter.

Golden evergreens provide the backbone of this garden because they hold their foliage and form all year long. Two tall, beautifully textured Hinoki cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Crippsii’, USDA Hardiness Zones 4–8) anchor the oval lawn, flanked on either side by lower-growing arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis ‘Rheingold’, Zones 2–7), which turn a lovely bronze color in winter. A large, conical arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis ‘Degroot’s Emerald Spire’, Zones 2–7) highlights the fountain focal point. A hedge of gold-thread sawara cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Filifera Aurea’, Zones 4–8) forms a soft curve and enhances the intimacy of this garden room. Two more sawaras announce the entrance to the garden with their striking, threadlike foliage.

Height adds interest to any garden by drawing the eye up from the horizon, so each year, I transplant two columnar golden Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa ‘Goldcrest’, Zones 7–11) at the waist of the oval to punctuate its geometry. Even though they are not hardy in my climate, their contribution to the design is so vital I don’t begrudge digging them out each year to be overwintered indoors.