Kat Von D is most known for her tattoos, animal activism and an adventurous makeup line.  What you may not know, is that she also has a black thumb. It’s not that Kat can’t grow plants.  Quite the opposite. Instead of garden gnomes, she adorns her garden with skulls. Her striking black garden is brimming with black foliage and flowers and it’s making goth hearts happy.

Goth Black Flowers: a Passion for Kat

Take a visit to her Instagram (@TheKatVonD) and you will see Kat in all black, her signature black lips, retro pair of sunglasses standing next to a patch of Giant Mammoth Black Sunflowers. Like a proud mother, she shows off their height, taller than her at 5’8”. She explains how the Mammoth Sunflower will become even richer and blacker as it grows its rich velvety petals.

A Meaning Behind the Species

You can tell Kat takes great care in the meaning behind her flowers. In one of her posts she writes: “Flowers have been associated with meaning for ages [aka pink roses represent admiration, white rose = sincerity, purity and yellow rose = friendship],” she wrote next to the Dahlias. “In the Victorian era, Black Dahlias [unlike most mourning flowers] represented a good wish for a couple + commitment.” This is a woman clearly not only seeking flowers for their black color, but the deep meaning behind them as well.

Theme Park of the Victorian Era

Popular in the Victorian era, these gardens of black flowers were the modern-day equivalent of a theme park, with people coming from far and wide to visit. Loaded with carefully orchestrated effects and morbid reflections of death, the gothic gardens of the era drew crowds then for the same reason horror flicks grab our attention today – a good scare

However, a careful look at Kat’s garden posts and it’s clear her modern-day interpretation isn’t out to scare anyone.  In a recent Instagram post, she writes: “Lonely little black petunia coming from our black garden came out to say hello.”  Clearly, her affection for dark flora shines through the dark persona we’ve come to know. She also considers friends of the garden as we see in another post under a striking plant called “Dark Dimension” she describes how the sturdy star shaped foliage will soon bloom to attract butterflies, bees and hummingbirds.  

Everyone Has a Favorite – or Several!

She’s carefully created her selection from showy to delicate.  From a Widow’s Pincushion, one of her personal favorites, which blooms black needle-like petals to a fragile black poppy made up of just a few tissue-thin petals that bloom only for a few days.  One simply can’t help but admire the dedication to maintain such a dark space.

Whether you’re ready to completely transform your garden into a goth garden or you simply want to add some dark dimension to your outdoor space, you’re going to find inspiration as black as your soul from the Queen of Goth herself.  Kat Von D’s garden is inspiration for us all to tap into our black thumbs and leaves us wanting a bouquet of gloom for ourselves. 

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About the Author

Rhiannon Samoyedny is a Florida native.  She lives in the Garden Acres subdivision of Oakland Park with her family. Her passion for horticulture started in high school where she took horticulture classes and worked in a garden center after school.  Her education continued by self-study and attending many local gardening classes and workshops. Her garden philosophy is to keep it as simple, native and as organic as possible.