Atlanta author Felicia Feaster can help you design a Gothic garden

Writer and author Felicia Feaster is a former HGTV website editor, where she started 11 years ago as the editor-in-chief of a new gardening website called HGTV Gardens. That experience, combined with her own avid gardening, led her to where she is today: the author of The Gothic Garden: The Mystery, Beauty, and Lore of Dark Gardening, which debuted in November. Here, Feaster, a longtime Atlanta magazine contributor, explains what the concept is and how she wrote the book.

How did you come up with the idea for the book?
The concept of a Gothic garden, which kept popping up on TikTok and Instagram, immediately sparked my interest. I started writing pieces about what types of plants people could use in their Goth garden. Serendipitously, the publisher, Simon & Schuster, saw those articles and tracked me down to ask me to write a book—in three months.

Where does the concept of a Goth garden come from?
The 19th century, or the Victorian Age, was a time of incredible interest in plants, especially exotic and strange ones, including poisonous plants. It was also a time of exploration into new places, like Asia and South America. When Queen Victoria lost her husband and went into mourning for the rest of her life, she influenced a lot of rituals and etiquette around death. Plus, there was a lot of new technology, and with that, anxiety about science usurping nature; that was a theme in Gothic literature at the time, like Frankenstein. This all laid the foundation—the garden is the place where life and death battles are happening.

Photograph by Tomas Epinosa

How does the book work?
The heart of the book is 50 plants, flowers, vegetables, and herbs I’ve chosen that have the most interesting stories in terms of plant history and are the most beautiful. It’s a mix of super strange and accessible plants. In Victorian times, plants had a lot of meaning; it was a form of communication in such a repressed culture. I also talk about ancient uses of plants, such as rosemary, which was used in embalming in ancient Egypt.

There are design elements to use in your Goth garden to give it a spooky ambiance, such as wrought iron gates. The plants are accompanied by illustrations by Irina Vinnik, which are so gorgeous that Simon & Schuster will release an additional publication in summer 2026 called Dark Blooms, a compilation of postcards and my writing about the meaning of the plants.

Photograph by Tomas Epinosa

Do you have a Goth garden?
Yes, it leans into deep, purple colored plants. I also have a dead tree; it’s almost like a tree sculpture. This summer, I cut down a castor bean plant, which was 10 feet tall. It’s the most toxic plant and has ricin that’s 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide. It has crazy, spiky red seed pods. It’s a spooky-looking plant. I love telling people passing by the story of it—it’s a good, easy shock.

Celebrate Feaster on December 7th at the Plaza Theatre, where she’ll have a book signing before a screening of Edward Scissorhands, complete with a Gothic-inspired cocktail by Videodrome.

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