Growing your Grave Goods Unlike the modern aphorism, ‘You can’t take it with you’, most cultures around the world did a great deal to make the transition into the Afterworld comfortable for the being in question, which meant including objects in the grave which would travel with the person. These objects were often of a [...]

The Garden of Ill Omens Tired of being a perkygoff? Haven’t had anything to angst about in a while? Need some bad luck in your life? Well, I have the solution. All of these plants foretell some sort of disaster, from wetting the bed to a death in the family…. Queen Anne’s Lace If brought [...]

Gardening for the Fey Let’s get one thing straight here, fairies are not cute. Shakespeare made them seem cute, and Disney finished off the job (sorry, Heather, but it’s true). The Fey are capricious, mischievous, arrogant, menacing, and sometimes downright evil and dangerous to humans. The Fey include elves, fairies, gnomes, trolls, goblins, and a [...]

Le Jardin Sanguinaire This garden design is somewhat of a “pun” garden, but could still be quite creepy as you show a guest around….Imagine pointing out your bloodroot, love-lies-bleeding, blood flowers……Lick your lips as you glance at their throat….Smile. Bloodroot This plant has clusters of blue-green foliage and small white flowers. The root was used [...]

The Little Greenhouse of Horrors Every proper gothy-type mansion should have a greenhouse or conservatory attached to it. In this controlled environment, all sorts of horrid creations of nature can be grown. Feed Me, Seymour! Carnivorous plants eat insects and other lower animals in order to supplement their diet….they still photosynthesize, but they usually live [...]

Gardening for Bats (and other Gothic Organic Pest Controllers) Bats are important in nature, and terribly gothic. If you want to increase the bat population around your house, there are two basic things you can do: 1. Grow plants which attract night-flying insects and 2. Provide roosting areas for bats. Bats can consume up to [...]

The Witches’ Garden Of course, we all know witches don’t exist (1). Neither do vampires. But once upon a time, there were strange old women who lived on the fringes of society, and practiced herbal ‘medicine’, and not always for good. Normal, decent folk, who wanted to protect themselves, made sure they found out just [...]

The Night Garden Since you gothy types rarely seen the light of day, what good does a garden do you? Well, here is the answer: a garden that consists of night-fragrant or night-blooming plants. Of course, you can’t really see that black garden at night. The key color here is white. White glows in moonlight. [...]

Flowers Roses Taboo rose I’m sorry to say, there’s just no such thing as a black rose. I could probably write an entire column on near-black roses alone, since this seems to be the black flower everyone wants (but not me…I’d rather have true-black tulips) ‘Taboo’ claims to be the nearest yet, but I found [...]