Happy Halloween?!

I'm finding it hard to get excited about the holidays this year given that every news release leaves my head spinning and sends my blood pressure up.  Halloween isn't my favorite holiday in any case but I usually invest a little time decorating for it mid-month.  This year, I just pulled out a few things yesterday.  Our neighborhood isn't teaming with children to begin with but there are more now than there were when we moved in and I didn't want to disappoint those that show up on the 31st.

My decorations, such as they are, arranged in the front porch area

Last year, the neighborhood offered a lot more decorations for kids to enjoy, including one house with a front yard full of blow-up monsters and the like.  This year, there's nothing like that going on.  I noted only four houses with any kind of decorations and they were all low-key.

Spiders and ghosts on a front gate

I liked the little bats surrounding this front door.  Two other houses sported scarecrows.

I wasn't aware that chocolate prices have gone through the roof, which puts its own edge on the holiday.  I'd forgotten to pick up candy on my last trip to the market and asked my husband to get two bags while he was out.  He mentioned their price to me when he got home.  We didn't "need" two bags of candy as we're unlikely to have that many Halloween visitors but I like to leave the leftovers for delivery people during the holidays.

According to an NBC news report, cocoa prices that had typically ranged from $2K to $3K per metric ton reached $10K earlier this year.  Tariffs have impacted the candy production supply chain but crop diseases in West Africa attributed to climate change are a bigger factor as that region of the world produces 70% of the world's cocoa.

Meanwhile, my own garden offered me some spine-chilling sights I could've done without.

I noticed that 2 of the 5 Agave desmetiana 'Variegata' I planted here as pups in 2019 are in the process of developing their own bloom stalks.  As the others are approximately the same size and were installed at the same time, there's a good chance they may follow on the heels of the first 2, which means I'll probably face an entire do-over of the area in 2026.

My persimmons are ripening fast but the critters are getting to the fruit even faster.  The Diospyros 'Fuyu' offered a much smaller crop this year and the critters have taken most of them.  The fruit of the 'Hachiya' variety is more plentiful but less appealing to most people as it's very astringent until it's mushy.  Once both persimmon varieties are riper, I'd planned to give them away in November with a variety of plants and some of the leftover candy.

I'd assumed that raccoons were digging holes up all over my garden but on Wednesday night I discovered that a skunk may be responsible.  My cat alerted me to its presence and I turned on the outside light nearest this bed and caught photos of it at work with my cell phone.  My photos make it appear they were taken in daylight but it was close to 10pm.

Banging on the window briefly sent the skunk packing but he almost immediately returned.  I risked a spraying by going out on the patio to create more noise before heading to bed but I suspect he returned after I left.

The next morning, I discovered the skunk had done a thorough job of turning up the soil and pulling out entire plants in that bed and others even though I'd previously pinned hardware cloth over much of the bare soil.  I spent nearly an hour cleaning up after it yesterday morning.

I also discovered that the bloom stalk of this Yucca 'Bright Star' has stressed out the plant.  I expect I'll end up removing it once the flowers are spent.

In spite of news reports and the price of chocolate, I hope you find some reasons to smile this Halloween, be it a piece of candy or a child's smile.  In the US, the clocks roll back this weekend and I'm looking forward to that!

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party