Things are turning spooky in the garden over the next couple of weeks as ghosties and ghoulies compete with giant pumpkins for top billing on Hallowe'en Night. Ireland's gardens are joining in the fun with lots of ghoulish celebrations.
At the unmissable Mount Stewart, Newtownards – recently voted among the top ten best gardens in the world - the whole garden will be lit up for an enchanting evening of story telling, music and games for all the family. At Birr Castle, in Co. Offaly, there's a haunted treehouse and other scary frights dotted through the garden: join them if you dare for a night to make you jump out of your skin. And in the lovely gardens at Belvedere, Co. Westmeath, there's a scarecrow festival, trick or treat trails and a monster fireworks display.
A home-grown Hallowe'en is fun to plan with the children: just let your imagination fly. Grow giant pumpkins to carve into scary candlelit masks for the doorstep; get the kids to dress up a scary scarecrow to make visiting trick-or-treaters jump; and theme your garden, too. Try orange pot marigolds and blood-red nasturtiums, or truly creepy plants like the bat plant, Chinese lanterns and meat-eating Venus flytraps – all available now in our garden centre.
