Advice, Gardening Events
How to Decorate Your Garden for Halloween
Written and Presented by Adam Woolcott
Pumpkin and Spooky Garden Displays
Life can be stressful, worrying, and concerning in this modern world. It’s always good to know that there are occasions to get together and have fun. No matter who you are, you can get together with like-minded folk and enjoy the Halloween season.
As we slide further into Autumn leaves continue to fall, and evenings become dark, what more reason do you need to play dress up? Play silly games and pranks, eat warming food and enjoy the glow of Halloween pumpkins and the laughter of children in your garden.
DIY Halloween Decorations for Your Garden
With the cost-of-living crisis and concern for the environment, it’s often better and cheaper to create your own decorations. The only limits are your imagination so let it run wild this Halloween. We made a spooky ghost using just a hoe handle, a football, and an old duvet. With a few extra steps like bamboo for structure and a pen for eyes, you can make a cheap but effective impact.
You can buy expensive, ready-made wreaths for your front door – but this year we thought we’d make our own. There’s an abundance of free materials all around you; twigs, autumn leaves, pinecones and dead plants to name a few. All you need are pliable twigs that can be made into a hoop and secured with a simple garden wire. You’re then able to create anything you’d like with that spooky look – and of course, natural materials mean that it’s completely biodegradable! It doesn’t have to be expensive to create a perfect garden for Halloween.
Free the Undead: Bring Your Unwanted Decorations Back to Life
While we’re all trying to reduce our use of plastic these days, it’s always good to reuse. You’re better off buying good quality plastic decorations that you can use year on year, not just once. This may mean paying a slight premium, but it is definitely worth it in the long run. These can vary from gravestones, skeletons and skulls and the older they are, the more authentic they look.
Plastic Halloween decorations can also be passed on as well with their accompanying happy memories and become family keepsakes. They can remind you of happy times shared by family and friends and reused in many a Halloween-styled garden.
Halloween Bouquets in Your Garden
You can make fabulous Halloween bouquets using twigs covered with berries, seed heads, dried grass and much more. Try adding orange leaves and moss amongst some bought decorations like spiders, plastic eyes and other creepy decorations. You can even add your own scar message like ‘enter if you dare’ or the classic ‘trick or treat’.
The Light of The Show – Carved Pumpkins
There are just so many ideas for Halloween but it’s the carved pumpkin that always steals the show. With an infinite range of designs and their orange glow on a cold autumn evening, they really capture the mood. They’re also inexpensive and can be used for delicious soup or an addition to a casserole straight after. Finally, it’s a way to be as creative as you can and have some fun while you’re at it!
If you’re quite artistic you can probably draw your own idea onto your pumpkin ready for you to carve. But if, like me, you can’t draw for toffees then it’s still easily done. There are thousands of free, downloadable templates you can get online to guide you through your carvery. You can then stick this to the front of a pumpkin and carefully go around the guidelines. I would do this with a pumpkin carver kit which is easily tracked down. This should reveal an expert design in which you only need to cut the top for hollowing out. Once completed, you have the perfect place for a tea light.
Get Creative with your Halloween Garden
This year, we decided to do something a little different with our pumpkin innards. We placed them inside our Webb 90L Puncture-Proof Wheelbarrow and added artificial blood and spiders to the mix. Hidden in the gooey depths are packs of sweets for those daring enough to retrieve them. This makes so much fun for kids and innocent trick-or-treaters and is definitely one they’ll remember.
So this Halloween needn’t be expensive or wasteful because with your imagination, a little bit of time and readily available bits and pieces, the joy of children’s laughter doesn’t have to cost the Earth.
Happy Halloween – have fun!
Adam
Adam Woolcott has over 30 years of experience as a professional gardener and has many accolades, but is probably best known for his four Gold Medals at The Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show and his three BBC/RHS People’s Choice Awards at the show (of which he is particularly proud) which he won as one half of Woolcott & Smith.
90 Litre Poly Body Wheelbarrow With puncture-proof wheel 150kg Capacity
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