Monster Garden Halloween Yard Decor

Decorate your yard for Halloween and turn it into a monster garden with man-eating plants, giant spiders, and a witchy front porch for hanging out candy to trick-or-treaters.

I love Halloween and decorating for Halloween, but usually, I go for bright cheerful colors and something more cute than scary. This year I wanted to do something a bit different, though.

My idea was to turn the house into something you might see in a fairytale, like a witch’s house. I wanted to make sure it was more kitchy than scary. Yes to Halloweentown. No to The Shining.

I always feel like “more is more,” but I think this monster garden Halloween yard decor turned out pretty good. Take a tour below and learn how to make these crafts and where I shopped.

In the mood to shop? I rounded up my favorite Halloween stores that you can shop at year-round.

Monster garden plants

The “creature feature” of my monster garden is this big, green, man-eating plant. It’s a little bit of a venus flytrap, a little bit of a Super Mario Bros. piranha plant, and a lot like Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors.

The big monster plant is made from a carvable foam pumpkin, a garden hose, and cardboard leaves. I mostly followed the tutorial for this venus flytrap candy holder with a few changes to include a planter.

I also made 2 baby monster plants using empty 2-liter soda bottles. First I cut them and painted them the same way as the pumpkin for the big plant. Then I used a heat gun to get the teeth to curve inward.

Even though they’re not really a craft project, I think these spooky sunflowers might be my favorite part of this project. I just picked up some metal sunflower stakes and metal eye picks from At Home. The eyes are stuck into the ground about an inch in front of the flowers.

I stuck a few extra pairs of eyes into the bushes. Each pair is about 4 inches across and they glow in the dark!

After Halloween is over, the sunflowers can stay in the yard and look cute year-round (minus the eyeballs).

Giant spiders

I made 2 giant spiders using milk jugs and pipe insulation following this giant spider tutorial.

Pool noodles might also work for spider legs, but the ones I found were too thick. The pipe insulation is only an inch thick.

I attached the spide to the house by hanging a Command outdoor light clip and looping a piece of cotton cord through the milk jug handle.

The spider webs are the super stretchy web that will snag and hang on anything.

Witchy front porch

The front porch is really where I started when planning this monster garden Halloween decor project.

One of my favorite fairy tales as a kid was Baba Yaga. In case you’re not familiar, she’s a Russian witch who lives in a house that stands on chicken feet and chases kids around in a flying cauldron.

I couldn’t put my whole house up onto chicken feet, of course, so I decided to mix the 2 elements together. To make this, I just hot glued 2 bird claw candlestick holders to a plastic cauldron.

On Halloween, I’ll fill the cauldron with candy for trick-or-treaters.

Under the cauldron is just a folding table with black fabric thrown over it. The rocking chair, I picked up from an antique store for $25. All it needed was a good wipe down with oil to make it look amazing.

My crescent moon wreath is a DIY tutorial in another blog post. It’s spooky and modern and is a fun way to add a little bit of light to my witchy porch display.

I picked over my local Marshalls to find the welcome mat and the jack-o’lantern. And I think they’re selling the same big jack-o’lantern at Home Depot.

More monster garden ideas

I had a lot more fun monster garden ideas that I didn’t get to this year. You might want to try some of them for your own Halloween front yard decor.

• Poison apples hanging from the tree in my front yard
• A creepy tentacle monster
• Zombie flamingos
• Zombie lawn gnomes
• Halloween birdbath or birdhouses
• Eyeball painted rocks to add to anything
• Turning the whole house into a monster like Christine McConnell did

What’s next? Try these other fun and creative ideas on One Mama’s Daily Drama:

• How to Make a Melted Crayon Pumpkin
• 12 Last-Minute Halloween Costumes
• Fun Printable Halloween Tangrams Kids Activity