The air turns crisp and cold. Leaves turn beautifully burnished shades of red, gold, and brown. Pumpkins, scarecrows, black cats and more turn up everywhere. You decorate your home in the spirit of the season--why not extend Halloween into your garden?
When you decorate your garden, remember that most gardens are outdoors, which means they get wet. You want to use materials that don't harm the environment, but also won't disintegrate the moment it rains. You also want to make sure you're not using things that will harm a curious animal that wanders over to explore your sacred space.
You've probably already harvested most of your garden's bounty. Halloween itself is the final day to do so. Instead of cutting back all of your stalks and doing full preparation for the winter, leave the remains of the plants in the garden so that it looks somewhat dead and desolate. Scatter pumpkins--decorated or plain--around the yard. Build a scarecrow or two out of thrift shop clothes, burlap bags, and hay or straw. Pose them throughout your garden. You can even get some plastic skeletons and set them up in tableaux. Give Halloween a sense of humor and set up a fake gravestone or tree stump as a poker table with skeletons gambling away their souls. Place waterproof or garden-specific black cats in the dark corners of your garden. Fasten plastic bats and crows to the tops of fence posts and on tree branches. Lillian Vernon has a set of tombstones that you can scatter through your garden, and for that extra fright, tuck a set of plastic rats around the entrance to your garden.
Use the wind in your garden and tie thin ribbons or heavy thread of white, gray, and silver to tall sticks and set them at various points in the garden. They will take flight in the wind and look like cobwebs or even perhaps fun ghostly figures haunting your garden.
Lighting is a great way to set the spooky mood. Because the garden is outdoors and you can't supervise it constantly, use outdoor electric lights and lanterns rather than candles. When used sparingly, strands of twinkle lights can be eerily effective in creating your haunted garden. Old fashioned caretakers' lanterns cast ghostly shadows through the garden. Unlike at Christmas when we want to illuminate the darkness with as many lights as possible, at Halloween, one or two carefully placed lights add an eerie touch to your atmosphere.
A mix of humor and spookiness will make your garden a joy to experience in the season--and a favorite "haunt" in the neighborhood!
Halloween Items will start to appear seasonally at Plow & Hearth and Lillian Vernon
by Cerridwen Iris Shea
