20 years ago Roger’s Gardens put out a tiny selection of Halloween decor in a back corner of their vast and rolling garden store.  But as they like to point out, the holiday has become a “decorating” holiday that now rivals the Christmas holiday season, and just as the local haunts spend nearly a year planning and building their maze offerings, the buyers and creative staff at Roger’s Gardens now spends a whole year developing their theme and finding unique (and I do mean amazingly unique)  Halloween decor.   We were there opening day, early in the morning, with a large group of eager shoppers to discover what story this year’s theme “Grimm Tales”  would weave, and we were once again amazed and inspired.

There were several unique rooms again this year, each themed to a different Grimm Fairy Tale, and with it’s totally different style, color pallet, and item for sale.  Many of the larger items already displayed SOLD stickers or were enjoying brisk special order sales (most items to be delivered in a few weeks, well in time for the upcoming party season)

From the moment you enter the theme jumps off the page, or perhaps a better way to put it is the pages fly off the book shelvles in a glorious arch flying over your head.  From there we visit the realms of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Hansel and Gretel.    We were glad we got there early to see so many of the product offerings, and almost sad to watch so many items whisked off to the cash wrap for purchase.  This is one store you will want to visit early this season for best selection, and we can hardly wait to see what offerings they come up with for next year.  Thank you Roger’s Gardens for going far beyond  just having Halloween items for sale, and instead creating a holiday happening and destination like stores used to long ago, and still should to entice shoppers in during this wonderful season of ghosts, witches, skeletons, fog, and yes, scary (Grimm) fairy tales.

The fact that the whole store area takes almost a month to load in, was completely understandable, they create a custom store layout, do all of the element decorating, create custom props and signage, and then load in what seem to be hundreds and hundreds of items for sale, all carefully grouped and arranged so that they are still easy to discover.  It’s like a vast and glorious estate sale in a haunted house.