![\"Croton](\"https:\/\/missiontimescourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Crotonweb.jpg\")
<\/a>Topping your shopping list should be coral bells (Heucheras).<\/em> You\u2019re not going to be planting these for their dainty bell flowers \u2014 it\u2019s the foliage that\u2019s killer. Black-purple. Bronzy-red. Silver with black veins. Orange and peach. There are many, many varieties, but you may need to visit several nurseries to see all the possibilities. Unthirsty coral bells are perfect for areas with dappled sun and dry soil.<\/p>\n Next on your list should be grasses, especially the dark purple or black ones. Black mondo grass is always a kick, but consider Japanese blood grass (Imperata cylindrica \u201cRubra\u201d) and the wonderful and dramatic new millet grasses \u201cPurple Majesty\u201d (dark purple-red) and \u201cJade Princess\u201d (chartreuse foliage with big, black grain heads). If these are hard to scare up, red fountain grass always looks great.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t forget that there are wonderful red-leaved New Zealand flaxes and similar-looking cordylines. \u201cFestival Grass\u201d is one of the best, with very dark, red-black spidery leaves.<\/p>\n The easy-to-grow succulent \u201cZwartkop\u201d is composed of striking black rosettes of foliage. But if you\u2019re looking for flower power, you can\u2019t do better than the bright orange-red daisy flowers of \u201cMystic\u201d dahlia with its lacy black leaves. This type of dahlia comes in bright yellow, rust and purple, too.<\/p>\n Two fall bloomers that will fit in to your warm and moody theme are black-eyed Susans and coneflowers. Both of these sturdy heat-lovers have had major makeovers. The color range and flower form changes of coneflowers is pretty remarkable; you might not even recognize them. Colors include papaya, hot pink, burnt orange, chrome yellow, creamy white, pinky purple and rust. Black-eyed Susans are now lime, rust, brown and yellow. Some have even lost their black eyes.<\/p>\n Ornamental peppers are having a moment and it\u2019s a great one. The small, upward facing peppers (yes, they\u2019re edible) are intense red, bright orange, yellow, cream and purple. And many of them have beautifully contrasting foliage of black, purple or variegated white, purple and green.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re really looking for some drama, the elephant ear (Colocasia) \u201cBlack Magic\u201d will do the trick and be a treat. The large, shield-shaped leaves are as black and mysterious as a plant gets.<\/p>\n All these plants can be used to spice up borders and boring garden corners. And since these colors all combine beautifully, any combination can be used to compose a container. Set one on your porch and you\u2019ve instantly got a moody, if not spooky, autumn welcome.<\/p>\n \u2014Gary Jones is the Chief Horticulturist at <\/em>Armstrong Garden Centers. Email him your gardening questions to growingdialogue@armstronggarden.com.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Gary Jones Not that you need an excuse to use black plants in your garden, but the Halloween season is the perfect time to add dark and rich colors.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":775,"featured_media":228331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"Colorful plants can create a haunting effect for Halloween","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/775"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a>