Scary trees, courtesy Flick user akira_kev.
It’s Halloween once again, and it’s time for the trick-or-treaters to wander through the neighborhoods in costumes. While you want your lawn to look scary, you want it to do so in a festive way. Unfortunately, we all see very scary lawns on a regular basis. What do we think makes for a scary lawn?
Horribly Overgrown
It looks like the kind of place where you could lose a small child, and it just might be. The grass hasn’t been cut for months, the shrubs are out of shape, and the branches of trees are poking into everything, creating that wonderful scratching sound on their windows. What makes this truly scary is just how much this overgrowth can effect their neighbors.
An overgrown lawn can hide things. It creates a hotbed for nasty little bugs and critters that can then spread to neighboring lawns. On top of that, sometimes it will physically encroach on neighboring properties. Tree branches may grow unchecked, and put the neighbors houses at risk in a big storm. Weeds can grow and pollinate, and spread. It can bring the property values down for the whole block. It’s even more scary if it is the property right next door.
Dead Stuff Everywhere
The grass is dead, the trees are rotted, and the flower are brown and wilted. Unlike a zombie, this yard probably won’t come back from the dead – it will just continue to fade, and become a barren lot. Sure, dead stuff is decoration on Halloween, but the rest of the year, it just means that the owner failed to care for their lawn properly.
Debris Field
There’s a rusted hulk of a car or mower sitting in the corner of the yard, maybe an old mattress by the forsythia. Walking through this yard is scary because it’s like a minefield – you’re never sure where to step, lest you step on something nasty. It could be animal feces, it could be some nails sticking up from a board tossed aside carelessly. Whatever it is, if you have to go in the lawn, make sure you’ve got some steel-toed, steel-shanked boots… if yu can, maybe just an entire steel boot.
Rust and Decay
You know what is really scary? Tetanus. So is the idea of falling through a deck, or a terrace collapsing on your head. This scary lawn and garden is a place where the owner has failed to maintain the hardscaping. They have let metal go to rust, stone hardscaping crack and break, wood rot. All it takes is a little bit of paint and care to keep up on things, but this lawn is having none of that.
All of these things make for the great scary haunted houses you see in movies. Of course, if they are happening to your house, or a house in your neighborhood, it might be even more horrifying. Make sure that your house doesn’t become the background for a scary story being told around a campfire, keep up on the lawn care, and enjoy Halloween!
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