5,000+ Jack O’Lanterns to Fill Descanso Gardens

We've seen you dashing up neighborhood streets, nearly knocking the treat buckets out of trick-or-treaters' hands, simply to reach that one house that boasts a half dozen jack o'lanterns lining the front porch.

Pumpkinists are a special breed of people, and we tend to get very excited over a well-carved jack o'lantern. More than that we get very excited -- and jealous -- when we hear about those quaint East Coast towns that fill their squares with thousands of lit jack o'lanterns over a single night.

Be jealous no more, SoCalers: Rise of the Jack O'Lanterns is readying its West Coast debut at Descanso Gardens. And the pro-sculpted jack o'lanterns, which number around 5,000-plus, shall not rise over a single night, but rather multiple autumn evenings starting on Friday, Oct. 3.

Indeed, the smiley-faced orange icons shall number in the thousands at the La Cañada Flintridge gardens, creating an after-hours wonderland of candle-flickery atmosphere.

The time to take to see them all? Descanso puts it at a "45-minute stroll through the grounds." Just keep a look-out for some famous faces on the pumpkins, in addition to whimsical designs and traditional Halloween grins.

The New York Rise of the Jack O'Lanterns, which started glowing a couple of years back, keeps on keepin' on, by the by: It's at the Old Westbury Gardens, should you find yourself in the Empire State and desiring a dose of pumpkin goodness.

But we're happy to have a Southern California take on the seasonal scene as well. We'll never not dash for that one house on the block that has carved up a half dozen pumpkins, but seeing a few thousand, in an evening-eerie garden plot? Call it a creepily elegant nighttime to-do. No mazes or monsters, just jacks by the thousands, flickering in your direction.

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