Halloween Countdown: October 13 - shapeless in the dark again

Autumn is in full swing up here in New England. The days are getting shorter, the nights are feeling chillier, and the leaves on the trees are turning lovely shades of gold, red, and orange. Unless you count clean-up and prep work (which I don't), the home gardening season is effectively over.

The flowers in the beds which surround our house on the hillside have all gone to seed, save for a small clutch of pink impatiens determined to hang in there until the first frost and, of course, the various grouping of mums. I have nothing against mums, despite their status as harbinger for summer's demise. They're pretty enough flowers, though they lack the majesty of zinnias or sopranos, but they leave me pining for a more sophisticated late season blooming plant -- something, say, like the Evil Puritan Strangulation Vine...

An extremely hardy and aggressive hybrid of clematis and pansy, the Evil Puritan Strangulation Vine was introduced to the region in the 1600's by Prudence Carver. Goody Carver was executing by drowning in 1631 on charges of witchcraft, manifested by her unwillingness to sell her plot of land to Miles Standish for pennies on the pound.

Just prior to her execution, Carver enjoyed a last meal of wildflower seeds with a goat's blood chaser, and from her bloated, rotting corpse sprang the first documented specimen of Clematis puritanus asphyxiata.

The plant does have a (somewhat deserved) reputation for being difficult to cultivate, mostly due to the fact that it will only germinate in the rotted corpse of an evil spellcaster.

Despite what you might have been told, this does not have to be an insurmountable obstacle. There are many occult home and garden outlets willing to supply the needed remains for quite reasonable prices. (Some experts will tell you to seed the bed with a premium 3:5 witch/warlock mix, but I've had perfectly fine results using a cheap industrial-grade hedge wizard mulch.)

One of the best things about the plant is that it requires no special fertilizer or plant food once the first shoots poke through the soil. In fact, the plant can make do with whatever material is at hand. All it needs to thrive is plenty of water, well-drained soil, and the blood of your enemies.

If there is a drawback to planting an Evil Puritan Strangulation Vine, it's that the plant does tend to get a bit leggy and can quickly turn invasive if not carefully kept in check.

To prevent this from happening, I recommend sticking to a regular schedule of deadheading and pruning, which is best done by hand or teeth.

With a little bit of time and effort, you too can have a healthy, beautiful addition to your late-season garden that will make your neighbors green with envy and your enemies regret that they ever had the temerity to cross you.

The Cure - The Hanging Garden (Studio Demo) (from the expanded rerelease of 1982's Pornography LP) - Gone are the relentless beats and claustrophobic production of the album version, leaving behind a haunting remnant that sounds like it was plucked off of Seventeen Seconds.