How to Prepare Your Lawn For Halloween

While Halloween mainstays like trick or treating, parades, and haunted houses may be out of the question this year, that doesn’t mean you can get into the spirit in the privacy of your own home. One way to do so is to take the festivities online — virtual costume parties, anyone? However, you can also strike fear into the hears of your neighbours by bedecking your lawn with Halloween decorations.

Here are a few landscaping ideas for the upcoming Halloween:

Provide a Clear Path

Before doing anything on your lawn, it’s important to check for any debris. Leaving any behind can increase the possibility of residents, visitors, and spectators getting into an accident because of it. To avoid any injuries, make sure you’re providing a clear path for the people who might be passing by.

The first thing to do is to clear your path of any leaves, fallen branches, stray pebbles, and any unlit decor. Picking these up eliminates tripping hazards on your property. Check for any cracks or holes on the paving and remove old tree stumps.

Get Your Foliage Under Control

If you’re decorating your house for Halloween, chances are you’ll attract more than a few curious eyes in addition to your invited guests. Make sure that your landscape is presentable. While a few autumn leaves scattered over your lawn can enhance your decor, there is a difference between a creative, purposeful mess and plain, old litter.

Clean up your lawn for Halloween and make room for your decorations while making it safe for guests and passersby. Check on your trees and bushes. See to it that you’ve trimmed them well and that there are no low-hanging branches that could scratch at visitors. Rake leaves and place them in strategic, out-of-the-way corners. This way, you can still use them as decor without limiting path visibility and compromising safety. You can even place a skeleton or mummy crawling from under the pile. Check for exposed roots as well and put up barriers to keep visitors from stumbling on them.

Utilize Your Pumpkins Well

What’s Halloween and fall without pumpkins? These versatile gourds go hand in hand with the fall holidays. They aren’t just great ingredients for your Halloween dishes, you can also use them to decorate your space. They’re essential lawn decorations if you’re aiming for the traditional Halloween look.

To use them as your Halloween display, you can carve designs into them and arrange them where you please. Whether you’re planning to cut highly intricate patterns and characters or sculpt the traditional toothy grin of the Jack-o’-Lantern, it’s all up to you. If you don’t feel like carving this year, you can get your kids or guests to do it for you.

Think Outside the Box

While it may be easier to purchase and set up mass-produced Halloween props from stores, you might end up with the same aesthetic as your neighbours. This is your chance to express your creativity and turn your ideas into reality.

It’s understandable if you want to retain traditional ornaments such as Jack-o’-lanterns and skeletons, but you can always take your decorations up a notch. If you have space, consider taking full advantage of your garden for Halloween and think of out-of-this-world ideas. Think outside the box, take a look at your resources, and let your imagination run.

Turn your lawn into a makeshift cemetery. Repurpose used plastic bags to form witches dancing in a circle. Stick monstrous silhouettes onto your windows or giant spiders on the exterior walls of your house. Cover lanterns with white sheets and hang them in doorways.

Break out the Lights

Adequate landscape lighting is a necessity for any home decor project. Utilizing the right kind of lights can improve the ambience of your yard and highlight the displays you want to show off. With these at your disposal, you’ll be able to effectively spook and impress your neighbours and guests. It can also increase visibility, making your property that much safer.

There are many types of lights you can use and different ways to use them on your lawn.

Lighting Up Your Lawn For Halloween

Lighting can make or break your Halloween yard. If you’re looking to terrify people with your decor, consider the following factors:

• Colour

  Since it’s Halloween, people tend to select darker colours for their lighting, such as black lights or UV lights. However, spectators may not be able to appreciate the full effect and see it more as silly than scary.

  Try using dark blue lights, instead. They can dramatically increase the ambience and create a gloomy atmosphere. Filmmakers use these when a scene calls for darker interiors or moonlit nights. Installing fixtures with dark blue lighting to your front porch can turn it into a ghostly dungeon. It can also elevate your eerie graveyard display.

• Fire

  

  Generally, fire provides light, warmth, and comfort. However, with the right technique, it can also be used to enhance the darkness around it. Candles naturally have a flickering effect, which can deepen any shadows nearby. The unsteady light makes these figures suddenly shift and move.

  Put candles inside jack-o’-lanterns and place them in your front yard on Halloween. Watch as they cast creepy shadows which will make your neighbours do a double-take. Also, line your walkway with a couple of torches. Avoid any accidents by arranging them properly. However, if you’re unable to monitor candles constantly, don’t use real wax candles to avoid any fire hazards. A safer alternative is using battery-powered candles or fixtures with flickering orange lights.

• Fog

  Set your home and yard apart from the rest by using a fog machine to enhance the spooky factor of your lighting and displays.

  Fog and lighting make a terrific combination. Use these in tandem to create a chilling vibe for your graveyard display. Place moving lights at different levels to make your property look like it’s being haunted by ghosts. Creep people out with glowing eyes hiding just behind the fog. Experiment with various setups to get the most frightening effects.

• Shadow

  Halloween is a great time to give someone a scare, and you can do so with the help of shadows. While people won’t usually mind their presence, seeing strange shadows can spook them on All Hallow’s Eve and make for an unforgettable experience.

  Form horrifying shadows by manipulating the lights. Strategically place some lights at ground level. Then aim them slightly upwards to cast malformed and elongated shadows whenever someone or something passes in front of them. To get specific shadows, make use of figurines and cutouts, or paint or cover lenses partially in front of the light.

While some methods of celebrating the season may be prohibited under current restrictions, you can still have some fun. Whether you’re spending Halloween alone or with a select few family or friends, you can still glean some enjoyment from the new normal — so long as you follow gathering limits, of course. After all, Halloween was originally intended to ward off negative vibes. Embrace your creative side so that you can still have fun on this spooky night with your family and friends while still staying safe.

If you’re looking for professional lighting services for your lawn, then look no further than Augusta Green Sprinklers Inc. For inquiries, contact us at (416) 227-1666 or email us at admin@augustagreen.ca.