If you’re a gardener who loves decorating for Halloween, making your garden a spooky space is a fun way to celebrate. There are so many directions to go in, each one creepier than the next. Whether you want a playful Halloween vibe or an ominous haunted garden, if you can dream it, you can create it. 

Creating a spooky garden for Halloween is all about creating a mood or atmosphere. Adding eerie little details can make a big difference, but so can decor on a grander scale. You can transform your ordinary landscape into a delightful space where nature and imagination mingle in the moonlight. It’s fun to work with the vivid and fading autumn landscape.

Adding a haunted vibe to your garden doesn’t have to require an elaborate production. Simple, strategic elements can add to an overall mysterious aesthetic. From the macabre to the monstrous, it’s easy to add a few spooky elements that will make your garden feel frightfully enchanted.

Black Magic Bachelor’s Button

Black Magic Bachelor’s Button Seeds

Chief Red Flame Celosia Seeds

Dark Foliage and Flowers 

Tropical colocasia adds drama with inky foliage.

Plants with black (or nearly black) foliage give the garden an instantly moody and dramatic makeover. A simple border or black petunias can be surprisingly effective. While there are a few flowers that fall into the category of true blacks, there are many plants with exceptionally dark flowers and foliage. 

While some of these plants may appear more purple in daylight, at night, they bring an eerie darkness to the garden. Black mondo grass is a fun groundcover with glossy, black, straplike leaves. Heuchera ‘Obsidian’ is one of the truest black plants, and it grows well in partial shade. 

For larger, more dramatic elements, ‘Black Magic’ Colocasia is stunning. It’s a tropical plant, so in cooler climates, plant it in a container. Several varieties of smoke bush have deep, dark foliage, too. Leave their mist of smoky flowers intact through the fall for a hauntingly beautiful display. 

Weird Pumpkins

Strange shapes turn any display into pure charm.

Pumpkins are a signature part of Halloween decor, and what better place to put them on display than the garden? Bonus points if you grow these on your own for a spooky garden around Halloween.

There are quite a few interesting and spooky pumpkins to choose from. Choose smooth ‘Black Cat,‘ for shadowy vibes, or creamy white ‘Casper’ for a ghastly glow. ‘Black Futsu’ is a cool and creepy variety that matures to black, and then cures off the vine to a smoky peach with a gray overtone. 

If you like a little bit of the grotesque, warty pumpkins are a favorite. They have a bumpy texture that can result from sugars, viruses, and breeding. ‘Super Freak Knucklehead’ is my favorite. It’s a large, orange pumpkin with deep green warts all over. ‘Red Warty Thing’ is as monstrous as it sounds and strikes an imposing form in your spooky Halloween garden. 

Night Bloomers

Fragrant blooms release sweetness only after dusk falls.

The spooky Halloween garden truly comes to life at night. This makes night-blooming flowers a must-have. There’s something supernatural about flowers that only open by moonlight. It’s even better if the flowers are white, because these will have a glowing quality at night. 

Moonflower is a wonderful night bloomer with large, white flowers. It’s a tropical vine in the morning glory family, and blooms from midsummer through fall. It looks amazing on an arbor or pergola, and has lush, dense foliage. An additional spooky element, all parts of the plant are poisonous! Keep kids and pets clear of this one. 

Night-blooming jasmine and queen of the night are other beautiful night bloomers, but queen of the night is exceptionally elusive. Nicotiana not only blooms but also releases its wonderful fragrance at night. Pair these with plants that have silvery foliage for an eerily glowing masterpiece. 

Dried Plant Elements

Seed-filled stalks attract small creatures all season.

One of the absolute easiest ways to create a spooky garden for Halloween is to simply leave things alone. Many of our favorite flowers and ornamental grasses turn brown in the fall. Doing this not only creates an eerie abandoned look, but it’s also great for wildlife. 

Many birds and other small animals forage on leftover seed heads in the fall. Solitary bees overwinter in hollow stems and stalks. The skeletal remains of all those summer flowers create interesting spiky silhouettes. Brown grasses sway like spectres in the wind. Tall plants like sunflowers and Joe Pye weed leave tall stalks that cast long shadows. 

Tombstones

Stone arrangements invite curiosity and subtle storytelling.

The garden is a perfect place to decorate with a few spooky tombstones. You can purchase them premade or come up with your own creepy or funny epithets. 

You can cut shapes from styrofoam and paint them to look like headstones, but it’s not the best for the ecosystem. Instead, look for large stones and paint them instead. It will also look more authentic. 

You can work these into the Halloween garden in different ways. A freshly dug grave is always super spooky, but a mossy one beneath a tree gives a melancholy air all its own. Get creative!

Skeletons, Bats, and Ghosts

Skeleton hands peek from the soil with eerie realism.

Once you’ve got those tombstones in place, think about a few skeletal remains lying around. A skeleton’s hand reaching up from the grave is ultra spooky. A skull in the flower patch? Absolutely sinister. 

What’s a spooky garden during Halloween without a few bats or spirits hanging around in the trees? If you already have live bats that live in the area, that’s awesome! Bats are wonderful for keeping mosquito populations in check. Plastic bats hanging from trees are also effective, and far less elusive. 

Ghosts are easy to create with a ball and a white cloth. You can go with friendly phantoms or shadowy specters. Give your spirits some personality!

One item to avoid altogether is those fake spiderwebs. These are terrible for wildlife. Birds, butterflies, and even small mammals can get caught up in them and be injured, or worse. 

Adjust Your Lighting

Shadows stretch long when lights shine from below.

Finally, adjust your lighting to make things a little more ominous for a spooky garden during Halloween. Lighting is one of the most effective ways to create a mood in any space. Your spooky garden is no exception.