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During the spring of 2008, each night after everyone had gone to sleep, Linda Rutenberg and her husband Roger Leeon, got dressed, grabbed their gear and stole out into the nighttime world of plants and flowers. Their mission was to explore and photograph the enchanted nocturnal domain of ten of England’s most beautiful botanical gardens.

Having procured permission for their visit, they set about each garden searching for the extraordinary flower, the secret passageway or special point of view that gives us an unprecedented vision into a world that has rarely been seen before. This poetic journey is very special in that it transports us into these hallowed bastions of beauty, history and memory at an unusual hour of the day. The ghosts of landscape architects and well known dignitaries abound. One feels surrounded by a profound tranquility and a spiritual quality that comes from the centuries of thought, creation and recreation. Capturing the extraordinary beauty of the garden at night can be elusive and difficult. After dark a transformation takes place. Stillness, a windless quiet, allows discovery and contemplation of what by daylight had seemed a familiar place.

Without the use of any traditional photographic lighting other than the moon and pocket torches, they spin their visual magic into the most sensual, sculptural and breathtaking photographs.

You will find a diverse selection of gardens, from the world-famous Kew Gardens, to Vita Sackville –West’s Sissinghurst, Hatfield House and to some smaller more intimate gardens like Great Dixter and Hestercombe. Then there is the magic of The Lost Garden of Heligan, wild, untamed and at the same time revitalized back to its former glory. And to Levens Hall, where the ancestors of the original owners mind the original topiary, now two hundred years later and to RHS Wisley, the trend setter. You will also discover a new perspective of Alnwick Garden, the eclectic contemporary garden on the grounds of Alnwick Castle. Finally, The Eden Project, an extraordinary symbol of re-creation and imagination. At night, the garden is transformed; plants and flowers possess a kind of luminescent elegance, reflecting light from their surface. So join Linda on her nocturnal journey into these wonderful gardens and let her open your eyes to a different world.