The Goth Garden: The Mystery, Beauty, and Lore of Dark Gardening

The Goth Garden by Felicia Feaster is a gorgeous art book that just happens to be packed full of history, lore, growing guidance, and uses of fifty plants and flowers to add to your very own goth garden - or at least to your bookshelf.

The first chapter provides a brief history of the gothic sensibility and aesthetic as well as some context for the rise in popularity of small scale gardening as a pastime.

The bulk of the book is contained in the second chapter, an encyclopedia of fifty plants suitable for the goth garden and includes growing tips and uses for the plant as well as my favorite part - folklore and history of the plant.

Felicia Feaster’s writing really engages in telling stories about these plants, and reading about cults, poison, murder, vampires!, etc. in these pages is as exciting as many thrillers.

Finally, The Goth Garden closes with some guidance on the layout, design, and decor and how to create your very own goth garden.

This is definitely a book I will have around just to flip through for the beautiful illustrations, to inspire me in my writing, and maybe even - with my black thumb and all - to guide me in growing my own Goth Garden.

Thank you to NetGalley and Adams Media for the Advance copy for my unbiased review. Pub. Date 11/18/25

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