Source / Queens Botanical Garden
A trick-or-treat trail for the kids, harvest cider for the adults, and a storytelling spider leading the way through an outdoor art exhibition.
Queens Botanical Garden has a fairly convincing case for spending Halloween in Flushing this year!
The 39-acre garden has announced its Halloween celebration for Saturday, October 31, with crafts, live performances, a vendor fair, and an afternoon candy trail running from noon to 5 pm.
Halloween at Queens Botanical Garden 2026
31 October 2026 12:00
Queens Botanical Garden
And yes, costumes are most certainly encouraged, and the festivities finish early enough to leave your evening plans untouched so don’t worry!
But the most intriguing part isn’t the candy alone. A special curator-led walk will pair outdoor artworks with storytelling and treats, adding something distinctly different to the usual neighborhood Halloween circuit.
Here’s what’s planned!
Source / Queens Botanical Garden
Halloween takes the garden route
Rather than sending little ones from apartment buzzer to apartment buzzer, the garden’s trick-or-treat trail gives them an outdoor route to explore, with candy available while supplies last!
There are Halloween crafts and “spooky plants” to investigate, plus face painting, a magic show, storytelling, and live performances slated for the afternoon.
The grown-ups haven’t been relegated to holding coats, either!.
Harvest beers and ciders will be available alongside a local vendor fair and Halloween photo opportunities. Food and drinks cost extra, but admission includes a setting considerably prettier than the lobby where you usually supervise the candy negotiations.
There’s a seasonal shopping stop, too: the QBG Farm stand will be selling the last of its harvest and the garden’s own bottled honey.
A storytelling walk with treats along the way
One of the afternoon’s more unusual additions is a guided walk through the garden’s outdoor art exhibition, with stories and treats at each stop.
The exhibition, The Art of Storytelling, brings together installations by six local artists in partnership with AnkhLave Arts Alliance. Instead of hanging on gallery walls, the works sit among the garden’s plants and pathways, drawing on the artists’ cultural backgrounds and turning different corners of the landscape into places to pause, look, and listen.
For Halloween, curator Darlene Deloris will lead visitors through the artworks while taking on the role of Anansi the Spider. According to the garden’s PR team, she’ll use storytelling to explore the cultural origins behind each installation, with a traditional treat offered at every station.
And there’s plenty to catch your eye along the route.
In the Unity Garden, Marco DaSilva’s monumental mosaic dress shoe has a plant emerging from it, combining Brazilian cultural references with the familiar imagery of NYC shoe-repair shops. At Cherry Circle, Haksul Lee’s 25-foot-wide musical installation, Sympathetic Resonance, invites visitors to activate it together.
Elsewhere, Cecile Chong’s stacked ceramic forms occupy the Bee Garden, while Dara Ojugbele’s basket-like head, made from fallen twigs, branches, and bark, sits in the Deconstructed Wetlands. It’s a chance to discover the stories behind some wonderfully unexpected sculptures, with something sweet to accompany the journey.
The exhibition stays on view through December 6, so you can return for another look long after the Halloween candy has disappeared!
Source / Queens Botanical Garden
Stay for the autumn garden
Queens Botanical Garden existed long before anyone proposed adding a Halloween candy trail.
It grew out of “Gardens on Parade,” a five-acre exhibition at the 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair. Residents helped preserve the plantings after the fair, and the garden eventually moved to its current Main Street home. Today, it spans 39 acres.
That history still has a living presence: two blue atlas cedars brought over from the original World’s Fair site frame the tree-gate sculpture at the Main Street entrance.
Once you’re inside, leave time for a proper autumn wander.
The Wedding Garden is known for its fall foliage displays, while the garden’s October plant guide highlights pin oaks in the Oak Allée and Arboretum. The Pinetum offers a quieter change of scenery among evergreens.
Tickets and essential details
When: Saturday, October 31, 2026, noon to 5 pm.
Where: Queens Botanical Garden, 43-50 Main Street, Flushing.
Extras: Food, drinks, vendor purchases, and farm-stand goods cost separately.
Weather: Rain or shine, with possible cancellation in extreme weather. Check the garden’s updates before traveling.