Halloween in the Garden: From Bats to Deadly Blooms

Gardening with the RHS

Royal Horticultural Society

Home & Garden, Leisure, Hobbies

4.4 • 654 Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the days grow shorter and Halloween marks the end of harvest and the beginning of winter, we explore the mysterious, the nocturnal, and the beautifully eerie corners of nature. Ecologist and bat expert Greg Slack joins us to uncover the secrets of these misunderstood night flyers — essential to our ecosystems but increasingly under threat. Then, houseplant expert and author Jane Perrone takes us on a chilling journey through the world’s most intoxicating and poisonous plants, revealing the strange allure of nature’s most dangerous creations. And finally, we turn toward the light again. RHS Garden Rosemoor’s Emma McFarline shares how she’s preparing her cottage garden for the seasons ahead, proving that even in the darkest months, there’s always something growing just beneath the surface. Host: Nick Turrell Contributors: Greg Slack, Jane Perrone, Emma McFarline Links: The Atlas of Deadly Plants RHS Garden Rosemoor RHS advice on gardening for bats

Transcript

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0:00.0	Save 30% on RHS membership today.
0:05.0	Enjoy unlimited access to 5 RHS gardens and 230 partner gardens all year round.
0:13.0	Delight in exclusive member only days and reduce rate tickets to RHS flower shows.
0:19.0	Plus expert gardening advice,
0:23.9	monthly editions of the garden magazine, and so much more.
0:28.8	Join today from just £56.org at rhs.org.uk.
0:32.5	Hurry, offer, end soon harvest and the beginning of winter.
0:53.4	It was a liminal moment of the year.
0:55.0	A quiet pause as nature slipped into dormancy
0:59.0	and people prepared for the dark half of the year.
1:02.0	The dying back of plants and the fall of leaves
1:05.0	mirrored the symbolic thinning of the veil between life and death.
1:09.0	A time of endings, but also renewal.
1:11.6	Just last weekend, of course, the clocks went back,
1:14.6	bringing lighter mornings, but stealing a little more light from our evenings.
1:19.6	Another reminder that we're crossing a threshold in the year.
1:23.6	So in the spirit of Halloween, we're embracing the darker side of gardens, the mysterious, the nocturnal and even the sinister.
1:33.3	Let's start with bats, the classic Halloween icon, and an essential part of our garden ecosystems.
1:43.3	Many species are under threat. Ecologist and bat expert
1:47.8	Greg Slack joins us to reveal the secrets of these fascinating creatures of the night and how we can help
1:54.5	them thrive. Then we step into the shadowy world of deadly plants. My old friend Jane Perrone, house
2:02.7	plant expert and author of The Atlas of Deadly Plants, takes us on a journey through the
	...

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