11 Spooky Plants for your Fall Garden

We've picked out 11 Spooky plants for you to get into the Fall Spirit this year. Forget spending money on all the plastic decorations and grow your own! Nature is full of plants with creepy colors, twisting vines, and spiky stems.

There's carnivorous plants which devour whole insects or are viciously aggressive towards other plants! Some are even named after spooky animals like the Bat Flower.

Take your decor up a notch this Fall and try decorating your home and yard with a collection of spooky plants!

Check out Seascapes Nursery's list of 11 eerie plants sure to give you the heebie-jeebies this October!

11 of the Best Creepy Plants for Halloween

1. Black Colocasia

Colocasia is a type of "Black Taro" and is grown for it's colorful foliage as an ornamental. This is not a food crop! Black Colocasia is low maintenance, easy to grow, and does very well in moist and wet environments.

It is perfect for beds and borders, near streams and ponds or in large containers. They are generally disease free but be sure to watch out for mites, and aphids. We have quite a bit of Black Colocasia in stock at the nursery! They'd look great by your front steps.

2. Black ZZ house plant

A house plant with a spooky twist! Black ZZ's require low maintenance, and is slow growing so it makes the perfect indoor decoration. It can survive even in dark conditions as it can store water in its thick petiole and tuber-like rhizome. It can reach up to 2-4 feet tall and wide!

The Raven ZZ plant is actually a tropical succulent from Araceae (aroid) family. Before you start to grow this plant, you need to know that the new leaves emerge as lime or light green. They take a deep purple or black hue as they mature. Be sure to let it get bright indirect light and water it a few days a week. PLUS, they are on sale at Seascapes. Stop by soon for 25% off.

3. Black Ti Plants

Another local favorite, Black Ti plants are sure to set the mood. Easy to grow, hardy, and versatile, Black Ti make an excellent addition to any landscape adding depth, dimension and a touch of darkness.

Ti plants prefer full sun but a bit of shade from the hottest part of the afternoon. You only really need to water them when you first plant them. They are well adapted to our Hawaiian climate! We are fully stocked at Seacapes, so come on in and pick out a few for your Fall garden.

4. Sweet Potato

Not only are the leaves of the Purple Sweet Potato on theme but how about the unique shape of them? Creepy! It's important to note that Purple Sweet Potato Vine does not produce edible tubers; rather, it's grown entirely as an ornamental, prized for its attractive, leafy growth.

These plants work great as a ground cover, in hanging pots, and can be trained to grow up trellises. They prefer full sun, and well drained and watered soil. I can just picture these hanging on your front porch, can't you?!

5. Black Velvet Alocasia

Black Alocasia is also a part of the Taro family, however this variety grows well indoors! This is because it is slow-growing and smaller than many in the genus.

Alocasia is for the more experienced house plant enthusiast as it can go dormant or lose its leaves without the right attention. Black Velvet is a lover of high humidity, making it the ideal plant for a steamy, sunny bathroom. If you live in a house with inquisitive animal paws or little hands, you'll want to keep this out of reach. Alocasia Black Velvet is toxic to humans and pets.

6. Bat Flower

One thing is for sure, growers really like their bat flowers. Maybe its the way the flower looks like a bat in flight, or maybe its the enchanting whiskers that can grow up to 28″ long! Whatever the case, this unique and magnificent plant is a novelty in the horticultural world.

The Bat Plant thrives in 70-80% shade, high and humid temperatures, and moisture. Flowering begins when the plant has produced 2-3 full sized luscious green leaves. Each plant can produce 6-12 flower stems during the warm months, which in Hawaii is at least half a year! The plant can grow up to 3ft tall with big blooms up to 1ft across and whiskers hanging down to the ground.

The Bat Flower grows well inside as well as out!

Carnivorous Plants

We can't write a blog post about spooky plants and not mention the carnivorous plants. What are carnivorous plants you say? They are sometimes called insectivorous plant, and are any plant especially adapted for capturing and digesting insects and other animals! Gross and definitely creepy right?!

Here's a couple that we keep in stock at Seascapes Nursery and make the cut of our list of Spooky Plants.

7. Venus Fly Trap

The Venus Fly Trap is the epitome of spooky. Just look at the thing! If I was an insect, I'd be terrified. Did you know this carnivorous plant is native to subtropical wetlands on the East Coast of the United States in North Carolina and South Carolina?

It catches its prey—mainly insects —with a trapping structure formed on each of the plant's leaves. They have trigger hairs on the inside of the surface of the leaves which signal the plant to close up its trap. When an insect or spider crawling along the leaves contacts a hair, the trap prepares to close, snapping shut only if another contact occurs within approximately twenty seconds of the first strike.

They are currently endangered according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service so they are a worthy plant to grow! They do like it wet with full sun, so think of something like a bog or edge of a pond environment.

8. Tropical Pitcher Plant

These carnivorous plants trap their prey by secreting a nectar from the underside of the traps lid. The prey often slip from the mouth of the pitcher into a pool of liquid at the bottom and are unable to escape, because of the pitcher’s downward-pointing hairs and slick sides. The animals drown and are eventually digested by enzymes.

Tropical Pitcher Plants have similar growing needs to orchids. Thriving in 50% sun or dappled shade. They like their soil to be moist so be sure to not let it dry out completely. They do well outside where they can get rain and a sufficient supply of food. We'd be happy to get you equipped for taking care of such an unusual plant!

9. Trumpet Pitcher Plant

The Trumpet Pitcher Plant grows much like the Tropical Pitcher Plant except these are considered to be a better indoor plant. If you want to grow a pitcher plant indoors as a houseplant, keep it on a sunny windowsill and make sure to keep the potting mix moist.

The more light you can give this plant, the better. It likes several hours of sun, but watch out for harsh midday sun. It can scorch the leaves. You can also set your trumpet plant outside for a few hours a day to enjoy the sun and let it catch some flies and other insects. I guess in this case it's more like a "house pet". LOL It likes well watered soil and a nice humid environment.

Bonus Spooky Plants

We had to include these two as honorable mentions because they are just too weird and bizarre not to. Here's where the creepy really comes alive!

10. Cobweb Spiderwort

The Cobweb Spiderwort (Tradescantia sillamontana) is a great ground cover in sun or shade. It's spreads slowly with thick, finger-like roots (kinda creepy) and it forms an attractive mat of white cobweb-covered leaves (definitely creepy). This unique plant is multi-seasonal though because in summer it'll burst forth with bright pink blossoms!

This eerie plant is great in pots but also as a ground cover because it likes to spread and does well in sandy and clay rich soils like we have here in Kaua'i. It likes full to partial shade and a moderate amount of rainfall. Not too fussy at all!

11. Osmoxylon

This unique bloomer comes to us all the way from Malaysia and the Philippines. Mature plants can stand up to 10ft tall! The Ozmoxylon (say that 10 times) is low maintenance, with no major pest or disease problems. They're easily grown in evenly moist, loamy, well-draining soils in full sun to part shade. Just be sure it has really good drainage. Adding some cinders to our clay rich soils can definitely help with this!

When it blooms, the flowers and fruits will be sure to add a spooky element to any garden! Come stock up at the nursery.

A Boo-tiful Fall Garden Awaits!

We hope you enjoyed our pick of 11 Spooky Plants for your Fall Garden. Hopefully this roundup has inspired you to get creative and add some life and sustainability to your Halloween decorations this year!