It’s October, so that means that Halloween is basically here. You know what that means, it’s time to start decorating. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Americans plan on celebrating Halloween in some way this year. That’s up from 58% last year and slightly down from 68% the year prior. Getting landscape decorations out is a huge deal for Halloween.
You probably want to decorate your Buffalo landscape for the season. Here are a few ideas for your outdoor decorations to make your haunted house a hit spot for trick or treaters. Everyone likes to see pumpkins and unique jack-o-lanterns, but let’s give you some more creative ideas to go along with the classics.
Preparing for an early frost? Turn your garden into a cemetery.
Since we live in the Buffalo area, early frosts aren’t exactly uncommon, so this tip is a good way to use space that you’re otherwise leaving alone. You can buy or create your own cheap fencing to border your garden area, giving it a baseline to turn it into a cemetery. Make a custom design out of wood or PVC, or get cheap garden fencing at the dollar store, you can paint these to give off creepy vibes.
Of course, another option is to buy Halloween-themed decoration fencing. However that’s going to get more expensive pretty quickly. Plus, making it yourself is more fun and rewarding!
Alright, you got your fence up. Now you need tombstones. I know we just said DIY is more fun, and it is, but the foam tombstones you can pick up from party supply stores aren’t too expensive. Also, trying to replicate the paint job of a dilapidated headstone might become more trouble than needed. Scatter your tombstones around the fenced-off garden.
Time for the last step, add some skeletons to your cemetery! You can add arms poking through the ground, reaching upwards. You can have a skeleton half-sitting up as if it had dug itself to the surface of your yard. Do it how you want!
Decorate in the front yard with your trees.
Photo by Peter Law on Unsplash
That does take us to the next landscaping decoration idea. Obviously, you want to decorate your front yard. How do you plan on it? Well, our certified arborists have an idea, you could utilize your trees!
When it comes to decorating your Buffalo NY landscape for Halloween, a well-placed tree is a fantastic spot for hanging decorations. Proper tree pruning is key to the health of your plant, but spindly branches that have yet to be pruned offer a chilling and unkempt aura for Halloween.
Keep in mind of course that having your tree maintain those weaker, spindly branches aren’t good for the long-term health of the tree. They should be pruned by a professional when we get closer to winter.
You can have spider-web cloth on bare bark, with a spooky spider dangling from a low branch. Another option could be hanging foam bats from a fishing line. Or, along that line of thinking, ghosts, ghouls, and/or goblins.
Basic bat and ghost shapes aren’t too difficult to DIY either. You can use foam and bedsheets to create the look.
Bare branches themselves will do a lot of heavy lifting in creating a creepy effect, so those trees that shed their leaves are ideal for Halloween decor. You don’t need to dress these trees up, they also work as a complement to other creepy or crawly things littered throughout your landscape.
Use your windows
You can achieve really neat effects using your windows too! Between stickers, props, lights, etc there are so many available options.
With stickers, you can create a fake shattered effect that will make your home look like a haunted mansion, or you could have silhouette figures like witches, monsters, and/or ghosts. Stickers are easy to apply and remove and tend to be the less pricey choice, but they can be limiting.
What’s really fun though is creating your own scene using props! You can marry the cemetery garden to your windows and create a scene with this Halloween landscaping tip – fake boarded windows. Slap some foam boards over your window and have a skeleton staged to look like it’s breaking inside! Combined with a shattered window sticker, your haunted home look is going to be a hit.
Contact us!
Reach out to Bradley Tree & Landscaping for your WNY tree and landscaping needs! Buffalo’s best bunch of licensed arborists love helping and educating our customers. We can’t come and set up for you on Halloween, but we can share some fun tips to spruce up your yard.
Stay up-to-date with our blog, where you’ll get helpful hints, quick guides, or other arboreal-related topics. You can also follow along with the fun on Facebook! Reach out by giving us a call or filling out a contact form today.