Using plants as decor is a great way to infuse some freshness and energy into your home, with biophilic elements being proven to have a positive effect on your mental and physical well-being. However, decorating with plants in a way that truly suits your home layout and other interior design choices can be a bit of a challenge, especially if you’re new to it!
We’ve put together this guide of 8 easy tips so you can decorate with plants confidently, enjoying all the oxygen, color, and new life that houseplants bring with them. We’ve also included some examples for plants that work with some of the tips, so you have a better idea of what to look for at the garden center.
Consider Your Containers
Decoration plants are stunning for their natural features, such as the colors, shapes, and patterns that different leaves and flowers take on. However, you should still pay some mind to the containers that they live in, as they’ll play an important part in the visual profile of the spaces that your plants occupy. Are you trying to curate a more bohemian sense in your home or going for something a little more minimalistic? Most plants can fit into any interior design style, but the container needs to align more coherently with the rest of the decor.
Start Small, but Go Big!
This is a two-part tip, as it contains contradictory points, but each point only works if used in conjunction with the other. What we mean by this is that you shouldn’t start by buying out the stock of your nearest garden center or houseplant store, but rather taking time to pick the first few plants that will set the tone for your newly invigorated rooms with plants.
Then comes the going big! Once you’ve started to fill your house with some more plant life, you should follow the principle that more is more, granted with a sense of care and consideration. Give your plants plenty of company to create the lushest spaces possible.
Fill Your Shelves
Shelving units can hold a massive variety of items, from kitchenware and cookbooks to sports almanacs and old trinkets picked up on adventures long since passed. They are also a great venue for plants! It’s good to fill shelves with smaller, less needy plants such as miniature succulents and cacti. These plants require less care and attention, which makes them more suitable for areas that might be slightly crowded with other items.
Don’t Neglect any Rooms
This is a simple, but valuable piece of advice, that truly speaks to the versatile nature of houseplants. You might feel that plants belong in the living room or bedroom exclusively, but you should experiment with them in every room of the house!
Kitchens and bathrooms can feel a little too showroom-esque when perfectly maintained, even having a slightly clinical or anti-septic feeling. Injecting a little bit of new life into them with houseplants is a great way to humanize your spaces. We’re not saying to turn your shower room into a greenhouse, but a little bit of greenery never goes amiss!
Oversized Floor Plants
Perfect for the corners of living rooms, bedrooms, and basically any room in the house, oversized floor plants are a great alternative to floor lamps. When decorating with houseplants, it can be tempting to choose smaller, windowsill-friendly options (more on that next), but a bigger plant in a nice clay or china pot is a great way to make a statement. Some great options in this field include Money Trees, Parlor Palms, Fiddle Leaf Fig plants, Rubber Plants, and Chinese Evergreens among many more.
Quick Tip – Don’t Forget to Care for Them: Now you know how to decorate with plants, make sure you can care for the plants themselves, otherwise, your keen eye will have been for nothing.
Look Beyond Green
When figuring out how to decorate with plants, it can be easy to stay in the realm of green, leafy options, but there are plenty of vibrantly colored, flowering plants that look great indoors. With a wider variety of colors, you’ll add complexity to the visual profile of the space, while also increasing your potential to feel mental benefits from the decor. Some houseplants that feature colors other than green include Anthurium, Arrowhead Vine, and Christmas Cactus plants.
Windowsill Filling
While shelves are a great home for less needy plants and corners make perfect homes for larger floor plants, there’s a lot to be said for lining a windowsill with smaller plants to give them consistent access to natural light. Windowsills can be a little drab and boring to look at, so enhancing your window-side decor with plants is an amazing way to give them a new lease on life.
Echeveria, Calathea, Venus Flytrap, African Violets, and edible herb plants are all great choices for growing on a window sill.
Quick Tip – More is More: Without overcrowding your spaces, pack as much plant life as you can or want into your home. You’ll be struck by the positive impact it has on your mental health!
Hang Some Up!
No surface? No problem! A wall decorated with plants in hanging baskets, or even plants that hang from the ceiling like fans or chandeliers are a great way to add texture and excitement to a space. This also lends itself to a wider tip of experimenting with the levels in which you position your plants, with the occupation of different spaces in your eye line increasing the immersive nature of your choices. Spider Plants are great for these kinds of setups, as are English Ivy plants, but anything with draping vines or leaves is perfect.
Quick Tip – Experiment: Don’t be afraid to switch up styles of plants, pots, containers, elevations, densities, and combinations. Variety is the spice of life, and that applies when using plants as decor.
What Now
With these top tips and the key principles we’ve laid out, making your home a greener, fresher, and happier place by integrating interior design with plants should be a breeze! The beautiful thing about plant life is that it truly does mesh with any style of interior design, meaning you can improve the visual profile of any room in your house without having to agonize about your choices. More is more, don’t hold back on creating a more lush environment for yourself and your family. Just make sure to choose your containers wisely!
