Make your own goth garden with these plants to celebrate Halloween year-round

Although not created specifically for Halloween celebrants, “The Goth Garden: Dark Blooms” (Simon & Schuster, 2026) would be an appropriate gift for gardeners who take special delight in the October holiday. Authored by Felicia Feaster, this is not a book but a flip-top box that contains 50 postcards for sending or framing. If you prefer a more thorough examination of this topic, a 192-page volume entitled “The Goth Garden: The Mystery, Beauty, and Lore of Dark Gardening” is available from the same publisher and author.

In truth, the “Dark Blooms” subtitle does not encompass the goth aspect of the 50 presented species. Many of the plants are here on account of dark foliage or toxicity alone. For example, Euphorbia lactea var. White Ghost has nondescript flowers. It is promoted here for ghostly white succulent stems. This whiteness indicates an almost complete lack of chlorophyll. As such, it is a slow grower since chlorophyll is essential to photosynthesis, the process by which a plant makes the carbohydrate essential to its growth. White Ghost must be shielded from hot sun or its epidermis (protective skin) will burn, yet it still needs bright exposure so that the little chlorophyll that is present can absorb enough sunlight for photosynthesis and growth to occur. As such, White Ghost is a good selection for a bright indoor location, although its sap is highly toxic, so be cautious about where you place it if you have pets.

Of course, if ghostly white is your thing, there are a number of species from which to choose, and ghost fern should be at the top of this list. Lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina) is one of the easiest ferns to grow, although it is seldom seen in our gardens. Ghost fern (Athyrium var. Ghost), a hybrid between it and Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. Pictum), is similarly unfussy in partial sun to shady locations, showing off lacy, resplendent silvery fronds.

Absinthe is a notable alcoholic drink made from the foliage of wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), another silver-leafed species which grows into a drought-tolerant, four-foot-tall perennial. Absinthe was imbibed by Edgar Allan Poe and thought to have led to a hallucinatory kind of inebriation that may have inspired some of his dark tales. This is understandable since absinthe is one of the most intoxicating spirits with alcoholic content as high as 89% (179 proof). Vermouth, by contrast, although made from the same plant, is only 18% alcohol. The name wormwood (vermouth in German) has a confused etymology. Some claim that it is derived from two Old English words meaning man (wer) and inner strength (mod), referencing its supposedly aphrodisiac effects. Others point to its vermifuge property, that is, the capacity to expel certain worms — blood-borne flatworms to be precise — from the intestine.

Miss Wilmott’s Ghost, a variety of sea holly (Eryngium giganteum), is a perennial that grows 2-4 feet tall and wide. It is perhaps the most stunning show-stopper of ghostly plants thanks to its silvery-white bracts, which appear as jagged silver armor protecting silvery-green, elongated, egg-shaped flower heads. It thrives in extreme conditions of drought, cold (down to -10 degrees), and sun-baked soil. The leaves are covered with a waxy coating that prevents desiccation from the salty winds that flay them in their seaside habitat.

Castor bean (Ricinus communis) is often cited as the most poisonous plant on earth. Castor bean is drought tolerant and extremely vigorous. Sprouting from a seed, it can put on eight feet of growth in a single year without any irrigation other than winter rain. Many ornamental cultivars of castor bean are available through the nursery trade. A few salt-sized grains of fully processed ricin, which is extracted from castor beans (actually seeds), constitute a lethal dose. If you were to swallow unprocessed seeds, it would take 4-8 to kill you.

Still, the plant is uniquely exotic with palmate leaves up to two and a half feet across — red, bronze, or purple in selected varieties — exhibiting up to eleven deeply divided lobes combined with spiny, scarlet red seed capsules.

Blackie sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas var. Blackie) fits in well with the dark world of goth aesthetic, even if the leaves are a deep purple or maroon as opposed to black. You can train it as a vine or let it sprawl as a billowy ground cover. It grows quickly in the fall in partial sun locations. I have seen Blackie planted with Terrace Green sweet potato vine with lime green foliage, Marguerite, with golden yellow leaves, and Tri-Color, whose leaves were variegated in white, pink, and green. Sweet potato vines excel as container specimens and different colored varieties present an arresting contrast when planted together.

It should be noted that there is one misidentification among the 50 postcard species: Melancholy thistle (Cirsium heterophyllum) is portrayed with spiny thistles when, in reality, it lacks thistles altogether.

Do you have a plant with a dark side? If so, send its story to joshua@perfectplants.com. Your questions and comments, as well as gardening conundrums and successes, are always welcome. You can also download the Curious Food Gardener app I am developing from the App Store at no charge.

California native of the week: Ghost pipe (Monotropa uniflora) is a parasitic plant native to forest areas throughout North America, including Northern California. Its flowers resemble mushrooms, but ghost pipe is simply a plant that is completely white, lacking chlorophyll. It takes its sustenance from mycorrhizal fungi that live in symbiosis with tree roots. Ghost pipe, however, does not benefit its mycorrhizal host in any way. Interestingly enough, there are certain species in the orchid and azalea families that gain their sustenance from mycorrhizae as well. You can order ghost pipe seeds from online vendors. Just make sure they are planted in the deep shade of a mature tree or trees. Due to its delicate ecological requirements, ghost pipe has been disappearing from some areas that it once called home.