Halloween decorations don’t have to be expensive. I collect wine bottles and cover them with labels from the craft store, use battery-operated tea lights behind books and objects, and repaint hand-me-down decorations. Every year, I buy one or two new decorations, so that I slowly build a collection of pieces I really like (like last year’s finds, my glitter crackle ghost from Pier 1 and ghost tea light holders from a shop in Smithville, NJ). A final touch is stretching spiderwebs (re-used year to year) over everything.

Early October, I let my potted plants die and leave them in their pots for an element of neglect on the front porch.

I also let the chrysanthemums fall over and dry out. Grass plants do the same. We don’t bother blowing away the oak leaves that start covering the mulch. It makes the house look newly abandoned, and it’s eerie when the dying plants sway in the breeze.

If some leaves and dying plants don’t do it for you, it doesn’t hurt to stick skeletons in the ground, either.