Spooky Season Planters: Transforming Planters into Hauntingly Beautiful Holiday Decor

Are you ready for spooky season? Sure, you can buy decorations, but consider combining plants in containers (along with using items found in the yard) for frightfully fun seasonal decor!

Use spooky season colors when planning your containers. Look for flowers and foliage in colors like black/purple, dark green, chartreuse, orange, red, white, and yellow. Combining these plants along with found objects from your yard make a fun and interesting planter that can be changed up just a bit as spooky season turns to all things fall.

You can use any type of container you like. Consider just replanting your everyday plant containers by season to save money, effort, and storage space. But if you want to get creative, an urn, pumpkin, or cauldron shaped planter would be really unique.

There are many plants that work well in spooky planters. Just remember to follow UF/IFAS guidelines for planting in containers. Consider the following plants, in spooky colors, for your ghoulish gardens!

Black/Purple Plants

Black Ti

Black Elephant Ear

Black Sweet Potato Vine

Black Joesph’s Coat

Persian Shield

Gynura auratiaca (Purple Velvet)

Purple Salvia

Black ZZ plant

Purple heart plant

White — Ghostly

Dusty Miller

White variegated foliage—many plants

White impatiens

White salvia

Orange

Marigold

Crossandra

Sunflowers

Gaillardia

Croton

Cosmos

Zinnia

Cuphea ignea cigar plant

Blood red

Polka Dot Plant (green with red spots)

Red pentas

Red coleus

Here is some inspiration for your spooky season planters

For more information, contact UF/IFAS Extension Polk County at (863) 519-1041 or visit us online at http://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/polk. The Plant Clinic is open Monday-Friday, 9:00 am-4:00 pm to answer your gardening and landscaping questions. Give us a call or email us at polkmg@ifas.ufl.edu.

If you are not in Polk County, Contact your local UF/IFAS Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Plant Clinic.

The Florida Master Gardener Volunteer Program is a volunteer-driven program that benefits UF/IFAS Extension and the citizens of Florida. The program extends the vision of the University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, all the while protecting and sustaining natural resources and environmental systems, enhancing the development of human resources, and improving the quality of human life through the development of knowledge in agricultural, human and natural resources and making that knowledge accessible.