It’s the time of year where we look around the shop and let our imaginations run wild picturing the plants come to life in true Little Shop of Horrors fashion. In our minds, our resident spiders become bloodthirsty monsters, and the rain on our skylight becomes a thunderstorm trapping us in a haunted house…
Fortunately for us, none of our plants or indeed spiders want to eat us, but that hasn’t stopped us imagining. If you want to join in the spooky spirit, have a look at our seasonally spooky picks and fill your home with petrifying plants that will raise spirits year-round… and probably look perfectly mundane in the light of day. Because honestly, at this point, I’m seeing cobwebs and bits of zombie everywhere.
1. Haworthia limifolia 'Spider White'
If you’re anything like me, you spent Octobers as a kid trying to make cupcakes look like spider webs with a toothpick. If you’re more normal, you might have just got your themed cupcakes from the supermarket. But hopefully you can picture the sort of thing I’m imagining, and then see that this is the plant version of that. The white ridges along each leaf on this plant look like the regular patterning of a spider web. Perch a pipe cleaner spider on a leaf and you’ve got an instant Halloween decoration!
2. Euphorbia erytraeae variegata - Variegated Candelabra Cactus
This one’s on here mostly thanks to its common name, ‘Ghost Cactus’. You might be able to tell why: it is basically entirely white, looking like the ghost version of a bright green cactus. Spookily, it is also not technically a cactus - and as we all know, on Halloween, everything is rarely as it seems… besides all that, it’s also perfectly possible to give yourself a heart attack thinking this cactus is a person standing where no person should be. Just don’t ask how I know that. I’ll just say that sometimes staying late on your own in the shop is a bad idea when the nights are drawing in…
3. White Fittonia
Honestly, I love a nerve plant. Their patterning is great, they look funky in terrariums and also in my kitchen. So I was always going to find a way to put it on this list. Buttt it is also quite spooky if you imagine that the veins on a white nerve plant are skeletal hands, reaching out of the ground and trying to grab you! Or if it’s an entire nervous system taken out of the body and spread across a plant, if horror movies are your thing. In any case, add a bit of imagination and this plant definitely makes the spooky list.
4. Zamioculcas zamiifolia 'Raven' - Black ZZ Plant
Whether it conjures up the Tower of London, a giant stuffed bird like the specimen in Bristol Museum, or the poem by Edgar Allan Poe, the raven is definitely on the spooky side. And it’s the midnight hue of that corvid’s feathers that gives this plant its variety name. This ZZ plant grows raven-black foliage, adding a touch of Gothic horror to your houseplant collection. Or just Goth style, when it’s not spooky season. This is like the heavy black eyeliner of the houseplant world: it really makes a statement. But maybe slightly classier.
5. Toothpick Cactus - Stetsonia coryne canarias
Honestly, this is the plant on the list that is the most truly terrifying to me. It has such long spikes and I am very clumsy. It also looks like it could do the Halloween vampire-staking for you, and cuts an impressive silhouette with its halo of spikes. With that metaphor, it’s also the perfect transition plant from All Hallow’s Eve to All Saints’ Day! In any case, if you’re after a wicked sharp plant, this toothpick Cactus is definitely the way to go to enhance your spooky decor.
6. Senecio mikanioides
Ok, this plant we have mostly picked for the colour scheme, but really, who needs halloween bunting when you can just dangle your Cape Ivy to add a splash of green and purple to the place? The glossy texture of the leaves is even shiny like that cheap supermarket bunting! It’ll probably last quite a bit longer too, and you can keep it out all year. Just add a pumpkin orange or midnight black pot and you’ll transform this plant into the perfect living Halloween decoration.
7. Stapelia stapeliiformis - Candle Plant
This one might be my overactive imagination again, but hear me out: zombie fingers. With its long, green, mottled stems, this plant looks like a zombie is clawing its way out of the dirt, fingers first. If you’re going overboard with your decor you could even add a tombstone with ‘R.I.P.’ and all that, just to complete the effect!
8. Zamioculcas zamiifolia variegata
This rare plant’s spookiest feature may be its price tag, but we also think it adds to the Halloween aesthetic with its pale variegation and spidery dark veins. This ZZ’s skeletal silhouette and pallid leaves get it onto our Halloween recommendations, but its unusual looks and ease of care mean it’s great to hang around for the rest of the year too.
9. Euphorbia trigona 'Rubra' - Red African Milk Tree
This plant’s common name is the ‘Milk Tree’ but with its deep ruby-red leaves milk is not the first liquid that springs to mind… this plant is the sort of thing you might imagine finding in a vampire’s house, ironically referencing their drink of choice. Never fear, though; you can keep the vamps away by giving this plant enough light. It loves direct sun almost as much as vampires hate it!
10. Platycerium bifurcatum - Staghorn Fern
The staghorn fern looks like it is straight out of a haunted house. Not only is it shaped like antlers, as if it is the trophy from the long-ago hunt of some long-dead lord of an ancient, creaking manor house, but also it looks like it is coated in the dust of centuries. This is actually an adaptation of the plant, so don’t dust it off once the season is over! But you can mount this plant on your wall, and imagine it is haunted by the spirit of a hunted deer - all in the safe knowledge that it is a living plant which will grow even as the seasons turn.
11. Muehlenbeckia complexa 'Pink Camouflage' - Maidenhair Vine
This creeping, crawling plant is very ‘Day of the Triffids’ in its growth pattern - thankfully it won’t eat you though. In summer light, its variegation is pretty pink, but in the dimmer light of mid autumn, it’s more like bloodred. With your imagination turned on, of course.
12. Spanish Moss - Tillandsia usneoides
If you like to give people something tricksy to think about when they’re round your place for Halloween, this is a great plant for inducing double-takes. It doesn’t have roots, so it can float around mid-air like a plant spectre, an impression helped along by its pale silvery foliage. Use it to recreate creepy cave lichen or drooping spider webs to add extra living spooky in your home.
13. Philodendron 'Florida Ghost'
And finally, this one’s a bit of a treat and makes it onto the list for another ghost reference. It’s a rare variety with spectral pale leaves. To top it off its leaves are also slightly hand-shaped, so if you see it waving in silhouette it’s easy to imagine an intruder tapping at the window…
I hope you’ve enjoyed our spooky plants list, and maybe are looking at your own plants a little differently, with an eye on halloween decorations! And hopefully not too much of a shudder at the image of the tapping leaf or clawing hand… the plants aren’t actually haunted - at least, not as far as we know…
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