Gardening and Gardens

Halloween is just around the corner and with a little imagination, everything can look a little spooky these days... An Evil Eye? (or just Rubeckia hirta ) Dried up brains? (or just a fungus) Long, sticky fingers of a witch?  (or just an ornamental pepper) Hairy arms reaching out to strangle? (or just an old vine on a tree trunk) A magic electricity ball? (or just pine needles) Pimpled, decaying flesh? (or fungus on a tree stump) Sweat on the green monster's face? (or morning dew on a leaf)   Bloody fingers? (or just Amaranthus ) Skeletal fingers, reaching out to grab you? Maybe. Mwahahaha! Happy Halloween!

One of the spookiest trees out there, in my humble opinion, is the Black Locust tree ( Robinia pseudoacacia) . It's trunk is covered in thick, deep furrows (grooves) making it look sinister to the touch. In addition, the branches are gnarled and twisted, which can create an eerie silhouette on a leafless, winter evening. The Black Locust tree can grow to a height of 50 feet if given the right amount of space. A tree that large is too big for the inside of my house. So instead, we decided to make our own spooky looking tree, complete with spiders and monsters: I found some twigs in my yard and had my children paint them black. I stuck them into a pumpkin container filled with rocks and covered the base with artificial black leaves. Then we created monster heads - some have five eyes, some only have one! The kids had a great time creating different monster variations. We added a few store bought spiders and cats to the tree as a finishing touch. I think it looks ...