8 Spooky Houseplants That Will Liven Up Your Indoor Halloween Decor
This Halloween why not add to your spooky decor with a few frightfully fun plants? Along with your favorite Halloween decorations like faux spider webs, jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, and skeletons lurking around your home this October, add in varieties of plants with hauntingly beautiful black blooms, spidery leaves, twisted stems, and monster-like shapes. They will give your indoor display a botanically ghoulish touch. Of course, you can enjoy these easy-to-grow, yet fascinating oddities from the plant kingdom any time of year in your home (a few can even be grown outdoors, depending on where you live), but their otherworldly appearances seem especially fitting around Halloween.
Mangave 'Desert Dragon'
Featuring long, narrow, gray-green leaves covered with brownish-purple spots, Mangave 'Desert Dragon' sprawls from the soil in a low, spider-like heap. This fast-growing succulent needs bright, direct light and regular watering, but if you neglect this chore, 'Desert Dragon' will live up to its name and be just fine until you can give it another drink. It's hardy to Zones 9-11, so you can try it outdoors if you live in a warmer region.
'Monstrosa' Orchid Cactus
This monster-like variety of orchid cactus has twisted, curled leaves that dangle like tentacles over the edges of a pot. It will do best in bright but indirect light and moderate humidity. Orchid cacti don't like to be in soggy conditions, so wait to water until the top inch of soil feels dry. When this creature is happy, it may reward you with fragrant, star-like flowers from time to time, but blink, and you'll miss them because they only open at night and close by morning.
White Batflower
The weird but wonderful white batflower has blooms that look like they're from another planet. Each cluster of small, dark purple flowers is topped off with a set of ghostly white and purple-veined "wings" that stick straight up. Long, purplish "whiskers" hang down from the cluster, almost to the soil. The blooms are sure to contribute a macabre accent to your Halloween decor. Place your batflower in bright but indirect light in a space with moderate humidity (it will appreciate a daily misting) and keep the soil evenly moist.
Toad Plant
It would be more accurate to call this one "giant smelly starfish flower" rather than toad plant (Stapelia gigantea), but either way, it's a terrific succulent that most anyone could grow in a bright, warm windowsill. Pollinated by carcass-loving insects in the wild, these plants produce large, five-point flowers that reek of death. It's not uncommon for flies to lay eggs on the flower surface and the resulting larvae may be seen wriggling around the center of the flower!
Old Man Cactus
Resembling Cousin It from the Addams Family, this cactus gets its name from the long, white, wispy-looking "hair" surrounding the entire plant. But watch out for the sharp spines hidden in that fuzzy beard! This guy likes hot, bright, dry conditions, so place it in a south-facing window in direct sunlight and water sparingly when the top inch or two of soil in the container feels dry.
'Black Star' Calla Lily
Need a bouquet fit for a corpse bride? 'Black Star' calla lily's striking, funnel-shape flowers are such a deep, rich purple color that they appear black. As houseplants, they grow best in bright, indirect light and need regular watering to keep the soil moist. These bulbous plants will go dormant in November, but should come back to life again the following spring.
Grub Fern
Although it has the soft fronds associated with many ferns, this species also features pale green, wormlike growths below its foliage. These are actually rhizomes (stems) that grow above or below ground and pop up new fronds along the way. When those rhizomes trail over the edge of a pot, it's not hard to imagine them as the grasping fingers of the undead reaching up from the grave. This funky fern is easy to grow indoors in bright, indirect light and regular watering to keep the soil moist.
Tillandsia streptophylla
Tillandsias (aka air plants) already seem preternatural because they have no roots to speak of and grow without soil. But this particular species has a ghostly pale appearance and wide, curving leaves that make it look like some kind of swamp monster with lots of tentacles. Because it doesn't need a pot to grow in, you'll have more flexibility when incorporating it into your Halloween decor. Just be sure to keep it in a bright place out of direct sunlight and dunk it in water once a week for about a half hour to keep it hydrated.
After the rest of your Halloween decorations have been packed away, you can continue to enjoy these plants around your home. They'll blend in with your other houseplants with ease, especially dark-purplish Raven ZZ plant. You could also display them outside in the spring and summer to accent other container plants (we recommend pairing them with black succulents) for unusual and eye-catching displays to die for.
