Goth gardens are a thing now, apparently. Garden Media Group (a public relations firm supporting the home and garden industries) points out in their annual Garden Trends Report that #Gothgarden(ing) is a natural progression of “our culture’s love affair with the occult”. This year, in fact, they predict we (Gen Z, in particular) will be enjoying cemeteries as the latest hip hangouts. Meanwhile, gardening suppliers are encouraged to stock up on dark hued flowers, from ‘Black Prince’ Snapdragons to a variety of black tulips, and also to “[u]tilize dying plants for merchandising instead of marking down or trashing.”
I thought the world was weird enough. Did it just get weirder?
And yet, a little darkness in a garden isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’ve shared some ideas in the past about turning your garden to the dark side. Given that a certain amount of gardeners will be going goth (you’ve been warned), I thought it would be fun to explore some more eerie ideas.
Creepy trees
Two views of native trees in Alaska, shot just north of Juneau.
Possibly the creepiest trees I’ve ever come across weren’t in a garden. They were growing in a dense patch of Alaskan forest. The tree canopy was laced with branches that spread out like the long gnarled fingers of a troll’s outstretched hands (above, left). Furthering the distinct feeling that the forest was alive (and not in a good way) were tree trunks standing well proud of the ground by roots that looked frozen in mid-step (above, right).
I’ve never been able to find the names of the trees. The hand-like branches may have been formed from a fungal infection or disease of some sort that forced the unusual growth. I did get an explanation for the tree-roots-as-legs phenomenon, though. I’m happy to report it had nothing to do with evil enchantment. Evidently, the trees had grown rather quickly atop rotten logs, their roots draped over and around the mother log in search of solid ground. Eventually, the rotten log was cleared away by violent storms leaving the trees appearing mid-stride.
I include these foreboding trees here as a kind of high water mark, in my opinion, for ultimate creepiness. I can’t see striving to get this level of darkness in a garden, to be honest. In my opinion, a garden is for relaxation. You don’t want to be constantly looking over your shoulder in fear of being snatched up by a possessed plant like the Ents in Lord Of The Rings (although they did turn out to be rather helpful).
But a touch of creepiness, perhaps one or two trees with oddly human-like traits, can add character–whimsy even–to a garden.
An Eastern White Pine, native to eastern Canada and northeastern U.S., photographed at the Royal Botanical Gardens near Hamilton, Ontario.
Take the Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus), shown above. It’s a native to a fair amount of eastern North America, relatively easy to grow, and is unlike a lot of other evergreens in that it’s got branches that tend to span out like long-fingered hands. In botanical terms, that would be plate-like branching in a whorled arrangement. If you want to double down on the personality factor, look for a Weeping Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus ‘Pendula’).
A touch of darkness
Gypsy’s Tango lilies, photographed at the Royal Botanical Gardens near Hamilton, Ontario.
Black flowers are always a stunning accent in a garden. I personally can’t see making up an entire bed of black flowers but a few deeply dark blooms can be exactly what a brightly coloured bed needs to calm things down and make everything just a little more interesting. Canadian bulb distributor Breck’s has a wonderful assortment of black choices, including black hollyhock, black iris, a fantastic black calla lily, a black daylily and, of course, the every popular Queen Of The Night black tulip.
If you’re finding a solid black bloom just a bit too much, I suggest seeking out Tango Lilies, an Asiatic with a variety of gorgeous colour-ways, many with dark-to-black centres, like Gypsy’s Tango, shown above. Talk about black hearted. Sorry. If you love this look, you have to check out Lionheart Tango Lily, offered by Breck’s in season. The bloom is almost all black but the tips of each petal is painted a vibrant yellow.
Black-leaved shrubs are a classic choice for a large border. All that textural darkness makes for a great backdrop to whatever you plant in front. Elderberries (shown above) are wonderful as are some of the dark-leaved Weigelas and Ninebarks (Physocarpus). Many of these shrubs don’t have genuinely black leaves, of course. They tend to be more in the wine-to-mahogany spectrum but when the shrubs fall into shade they provide all the drama you’d need.
Diphylleia cymosa (American umbrella leaf), photographed at Reford Gardens in Gaspe, Quebec.
The wonderful Umbrella Leaf plant (Diphylleia cymosa), shown above, is my idea of goth with a sense of humour. Native to a small patch of eastern central United States from Virginia to Georgia, its midnight blue berries atop blood red stalks have a lovely the-aliens-have-landed! quality by way of Hanna-Barbera.
There’s goth, and then there’s Gothic
Left: A garden wall evoking a castle ruin at Keppel Croft Gardens in Big Bay, Ontario. Right: a garden sculpture in the Gothic style at a garden in Toronto, Ontario.
You can always go a little goth with nary a black plant in sight. Gothic-inspired garden decor is about as traditional a garden look as you can get, at least if your inspirations are coming from Europe and the U.K., and it’s not that difficult to inject a little goth-ness in the garden quite tastefully. Try a faux ruin (above, left), an angelic statue (above, right) or anything in the shape of a Lancet window (that iconic pointed arch shape which is the epitome of Gothic).
And speaking of the dead
My guess is that many of us are actually way ahead of this trend by keeping plants around long after they’ve expired–very Goth, indeed. Here we were thinking we were simply lending a hand to wildlife with seed-heads for food and stems (if they’re hollow) for over-winter housing.
Seedheads of Echinacea purpurea ‘Rubinstern’ in late fall, photographed at Royal Botanical Gardens, Ontario.
The purple coneflower called Ruby Star (shown above) is a particularly wonderful multi-tasker: beauty in summer; wildlife helper in autumn; and another kind of beauty altogether in winter. A mass planting of Echinacea can look starkly beautiful against a blanket of snow–black silhouettes against the frozen stillness. What could be more gloriously Goth than that!
