The Little Plot of Horrors


© Carol Wallace
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I am dying for Bela Lugosi!

No - not because he has his teeth sunk in my neck. I doubt if I'm his type, anyway if I remember my Dracula correctly. What I'm dying to do is plant him in my little plot. Oh, not the traditional 6 feet under. He only goes as deep as any of the other daylilies in my garden. I think he would look just beautiful next to 'Nosferatu' - another dark and mysterious daylily that is also on my wish list.

They could be the cornerstone of my little plot of horrors - a garden filled with plants that recall all those things that go bump in the night and that kept me awake through most of my childhood - which may explain why I am such a night owl today.

No Halloween garden would be complete without a pumpkin - but in this case it really needs to be the ghost of a pumpkin - or at least that's what the all white Lumina resembles. And maybe a vine of the miniature white pumpkin called Baby Boo if I have room.

I could also add a couple of ghost plants. There are at least three which go by this name: Artemesia lactiflora, Voyria and Sedum weinbergii - presumably because either the flowers or foliage cast a ghostly (but never ghastly) light in the garden.

The plant world is rife with chiller/thriller type plants. Take the tacca (you'll have to scroll down a ways to do it). In white it looks like a cat's face with droopy whiskers - but it also comes in black and looks exactly like a bat in flight. I think it would feel right at home in a garden with Bela.

And then I might add Miss Wilmott's Ghost - an Eryngium giganteum that the famed gardener Ellen Wilmott apparently took such a liking to that she surreptitiously sowed a few seeds wherever she went - until it became like a haunting. Wherever she walked - there it grew.

If I wanted to go the Satanic route, I could include many plants named after the devil. Devil's Backbone and Devil's Ivy are usually houseplants, but if there isn't too much frost, I'm sure they could spend a bit of time in this area on Halloween - they might finally feel really at home.

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Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: View all related messages

3.   Oct 26, 2003 9:43 AM
Hi Carol,

I'm trick or treating through the Suite's Haunted Selections and this is one wonderful treat!

Happy Halloween! ...


-- posted by cmborris


2.   Oct 26, 1998 7:43 PM
You'd be amazed at how many plants are called "devil -something." I couldn't use even half and still have room for ghost plants and bats and such. Some really weird plants out there - as well as some ...

-- posted by CarolWallace


1.   Oct 25, 1998 7:18 PM
Carol, Devil's Guts? Now that one I've never heard of. And I don't think I will ever forget it.

Eileen O'dea - Contributing Editor
Home and ...


-- posted by Margot





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