Rogers Garden's 2007 Halloween Carnivale

Here's more on the wonderful plant nursery Rogers Garden's and their past Halloween themes. In 2007, they did Carnivale de Mystique, which had the feel of an old Victorian carnival. I loved the wired canvas banner with it's trailing ends in the photo above. They had another one that said "Fortunes Told" outside the fortune telling room. The photos are blurry because so many stores and designer showcases tended to frown upon photos being taken, much less flash photos, that I was trying to take these somewhat on the sly. Now cell phones with cameras are so common, many places have just given up policing things (except Stat's in Pasadena, more about that another time.) I apologize for the poor photo quality, but the only other place I saw photos of this was here on Pandora's Parlor blog.I just felt the idea had great haunt potential and should be shared.

Roger's had painted canvas posters for  "The Amazing Sword Swallower" and another one for a Fire Eater.

They also had all these black wooden crates piled up, you'd walk around the pile and look in various holes to see oddities in jars and fishbowls. The crates would have colored lights inside, and outside were labels identifying the oddities as things like "Mutant Alien Baby, circa 1901 Roswell, New Mexico" and "Cockrochas Gigantus, found under unknown refrigerator". There was also a Two-Headed Snake and an Amazonian Spider.

To see my blog about Roger's Gardens 2009 Halloween, go here. For more inspiration on the carnivale theme,  watch the HBO series Carnivale. And if you need something to wear, consider Brittany Spears. You heard right. Her corseted outfit for her "Circus" tour has a nice Victorian touch.       I can't believe I just said that.

Roger's Gardens Halloween

These pictures of a mad scientist's laboratory were taken at a plant nursery. That's right: a plant nursery that does a haunt! Couldn't you just swoon with happiness?! The beautiful Roger's Gardens, located at 2301 San Joaquin Hills Rd, Corona del Mar, California, completely decorates one of their buildings, which then is open to the public during regular business hours in September and October. They create a different haunt theme each year, publishing the full backstory on their website and on mail-outs when the building is ready. Note that it is not a traditional haunt, but rather a store with many large, extremely detailed "haunt displays" (with sound effects!) that are right in the center of things, allowing you to touch the objects and become fully immersed in the backstory. That is, if you can ignore the nearby shelves, urns and baskets spilling with Halloween goodies that are actually for sale! They even sell Bucky skeleton parts at very reasonable prices. It's my heaven, and I sooo look forward to going each year. Here's some more pics from 2009's depraved-magician's-basement theme: