With a bit of planning and the right details, you can create a seasonal display that’s the envy of the neighborhood. Showing off your Halloween spirit is easy when you have a theme in place. A harvest theme is an easy way to bring Halloween fun to your garden decor – and you can find everything you need to set the mood at our garden center.

Pumpkins and ornamental gourds of all shapes, sizes and colors will add interest to any seasonal or Halloween display. Pick a bunch, then place them all around your yard. Try clustering groups of them around your shrubs or within your landscaped beds, or perhaps cascade several down your porch steps.

To create a harvest-time look this Halloween, place bales of hay in your garden beds and around the lawn. Surround the bales with corn stalks, colorful gourds and festive-looking Indian corn. Add a scarecrow or two and a few jack-o-lanterns, then add some splashes of color with our ornamental peppers in a variety of color and shapes, some chrysanthemums and aster and you can even hollow out a pumpkin and plant it for a unique and unusual yet lovely focal point.

Who says you have to carve a scary pumpkin? Create a decoration that is warm and friendly while being festive at the same time. So ditch the fangs and evil looking slanted eyes and paint a cute and whimsical face on your pumpkins. There are many ways to do this and some are just so easy and makes for an excellent family activity full of smiles and laughter. Consider the thought of a pumpkin wearing eyeglasses. Seems silly, right? Then again, glasses are much more difficult to carve, so grab some acrylic paint and doodle a funny face onto your pumpkin with a paintbrush. Don’t dwell to much on the specifics because too much thinking will take some of the fun and spontaneity out of the endeavor.

Need more ideas for your pumpkin purchase. Here’s a link to 48 Painted Pumpkin Ideas with how-to instructions for creating your own Halloween masterpiece. So take home a few pumpkins, gather up the kids and have some fun this Halloween.

Painted Pumpkin Faces make excellent housewarming or party gifts too. We have a large selection of pre-painted pumpkin faces, all of them true gems of the holiday tradition. Get one today and chuckle the whole way home.

• According to Irish legend, Jack O’Lanterns are named after a stingy man named Jack who, because he tricked the devil several times, was forbidden entrance into both heaven and hell. He was condemned to wander the Earth, waving his lantern to lead people away from their paths.
• The first Jack O’Lanterns were actually made from turnips.
• Black and orange are typically associated with Halloween. Orange is a symbol of strength and endurance and, along with brown and gold, stands for the harvest and autumn. Black is typically a symbol of death and darkness and acts as a reminder that Halloween once was a festival that marked the boundaries between life and death.
• According to tradition, if a person wears his or her clothes inside out and then walks backwards on Halloween, he or she will see a witch at midnight.
• Dressing up as ghouls and other spooks originated from the ancient Celtic tradition of townspeople disguising themselves as demons and spirits.
• The Celts believed that disguising themselves this way would allow them to escape the notice of the real spirits wandering the streets during Samhain.
• The average bag of candy that one child will collect on Halloween contains about 11,000 calories