Living, breathing, and delightful. Plants have crept into interiors, and they are here to stay. Their colors bring such richness indoors a room is incomplete without them. What’s more, using plants in interior design can increase your aesthetic appeal in no time, not to mention added health benefits to bringing the outdoors in. Read on for everything you need to freshen up your space with greenery!
Interior Decorating with Plants Tips and Tricks
Indoor plant design dates back to 1,000 BC, China. Far from functional, pot plants were purely ornamental. In fact, having cultivated flowering trees in a home was a sign of nobility and status. As the adoration of manicured greenery continues, so does the accessibility. Stunning flower markets pop up near neighborhoods and nurseries. Anyone can have a jungle-esque indoors. And all you need for a flourishing space is to stick to the basic principles of interior decorating with plants. Here are the first few to get started.
Not sure where to start with adding plants to your interior? Then, schedule a Free Online Interior Design Consultation for help getting started today!
Assess Your Space
Plants can fit any room, big or small. But it’s still vital to determine which type will work better in your interior. For instance, a kokedama or wall planter is great for a small room with a limited surface area. On the other hand, a large potted tree fits the drama of a spacious family room with a vaulted ceiling. You can also include a plant-only shelf as a living decoration.
Get to Know Your Plants
When decorating with plants indoors, you need to be mindful of how much sun and water your plant needs. You can pick from a wide range of low-maintenance greenery. This includes shade, semi-shade, full-sun, evergreen, and deciduous plants.
Pick the Right Container
The pot or planter box must meet two criteria. It must match your interior style and also be big enough to hold the correct soil and drainage. You can even opt for wall-mounted arrangements, like moss or herb walls.
Play with Heights & Sizes
Make the most of your vertical and horizontal space. Arrange various plants – from tall to slim and stubby – in clusters to create a balanced vignette.
Best House Plants for Interior Design
Some plants in interior design simply do better than others. Here are the hardiest, fastest-growing, and most beautiful greens for indoor plant design.
1. Sweetheart Plant
Cascading and wonderful. The sweetheart plant is a versatile climber perfect in a hanging basket, pot, or wall-mount. Its leaves sprout bronze before turning a deep, rich green. Their trailing vines make an exceptional focal point in a corner or near a bookshelf. However, it can irritate skin and eyes. So it’s best to keep your sweetheart out of reach from children and pets.
Sweatheart Plant Care: Happy in low to medium sunlight, the sweetheart plant needs weekly watering.
2. Fiddle Leaf Fig Tree
A popular choice for house plants in interior design, the fiddle leaf fig tree is as hardy as it’s beautiful. Its paper-like leaves are evergreen and sturdy. They won’t flop or drop to leave branches bare. So easy to care for, the fig tree is a wonderful addition to living rooms.
Fig Tree Care: Place your plant in a sunny spot and water once a week or more when it’s dry.
3. Monstera
Bold monsteras, also known as delicious monsters, are plants that thrive on little attention and less sunlight. If you want to spruce up your living room design with plants, this is a low-maintenance plant to try. For a bold feature, pick a big wing-leaf monstera, and for a delicate arty look, choose a split-leaf Philodendron varietal instead.
Monstera Plant Care: Water your plant once a week and ensure it lives in a shaded area.
4. Palm
Palm trees come in all shapes and sizes. But what unites them are lush fern-like fronds that spring from the ground. These leaves lean slightly to form a green fountain shape that shades the surface below. They work equally well as a small desk plant or as a big and exuberant feature in a large room.
Palm Plant Care: These sturdy greens need partial to full sun and weekly watering.
5. Snake Plant
Strikingly sculptural, the snake plant (also known as mother-in-law’s tongue) is one of the hardiest plants you’ll find. This never-say-die succulent is believed to rid an interior of negative energy. Moreover, its ribbon-like leaves are air purifying. In fact, they can absorb harmful chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde.
Snake Plant Care: It can survive in most conditions but grows best in indirect sunlight. Water your plant infrequently, allowing the plant to dry before its next watering.
6. Air Plants (Tillandsias)
The two plant families that need the least maintenance and care are air plants and succulents. While tillandsias absorb their nutrients from the air, succulents live off the soil. For this reason, spiky-leaf air plants are the least demanding and most versatile of all living plants in interior design. They can even anchor onto any object, given it’s stable and offers grip. These green pops look exceptional in glass terrariums or wall-mounted vases.
Air Plant Care: Air plants need full or indirect sun, but fluorescent light will also keep them alive. Mist your tillandsias weekly. But if it’s dry, increase misting to every five days, or lower to every ten days for humid conditions.
Faux vs Real Plants in Interior Design
At times, you’ll have to choose between real and artificial plants in interior design. Each category has its benefits and drawbacks. But when designed correctly, every plant – true or faux – can be marvelous.
Faux Plants in Interior Design
Artificial house plants in interior design are great for commercial spaces and hard-to-reach places. Here are their set of pros and cons.
Benefits of Faux Plants
- Cost-Effective
You get what you pay for, and you save on maintenance costs. There is no gamble on whether a plant will survive or not. The artificial plant you choose will remain while you have use for it.
- Reduced Maintenance
Faux plants in interior design offer near-effortless green goodness. No more trying to remember watering days or which plants need sun and which don’t. Apart from dusting, your artificial blooms need no attention whatsoever.
- Avoid Allergies
Artificial greenery is ideal for those who struggle with allergies but love to bring nature indoors. You can have your favorite shrubs and flowers without suffering from stuffiness.
Draw Backs of Faux Plants
- Unchanging
A part of the joy of caring for living plants is to watch their growth. Seeing something you’ve nurtured thrive is very rewarding. Plus, being ever-changing, live plants won’t become dull but grow into their pot and fill up a space over time.
- No Air Cleaning
Unlike the real thing, faux plants won’t improve indoor air quality or humidity.
- Aging
Faux plants often don’t age as gracefully as their living counterparts. They tend to collect dust and fade over time.
Real Plants in Interior Design
Interior decorating with plants is even more attractive once you hear the benefits of the real thing. However, like fake plants, living greens also come with drawbacks. We list the main features below.
Benefits of Real Plants
- Mood-Boosting
Indoor plant design can uplift your mood. Lively green hues can reduce anxiety and stress and increase relaxation and focus. In turn, this can lead to more positive feelings.
- Increase Productivity
Plants in your home office or study can improve concentration and memory retention. Our work accuracy and performance tend to increase simply by being around a natural element.
- Air Purifying
Alive and breathing, some plants absorb toxins from the atmosphere and release oxygen in return. This is all thanks to photosynthesis. They can rid the air of numerous pollutants, like benzene, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide.
Draw Backs of Real Plants
- Maintenance
All living house plants in interior design need some level of maintenance, ranging from daily to monthly routines. Care can include watering, trimming, providing feed, and rotation as the season changes. Some plants are toxic and need to be placed out of reach of pets and children.
- Continual Care
Like pets, your plants will also need a plant-sitter if you’re going on a getaway longer than five days. Most plants need at least a weekly watering to flourish, or else they might dehydrate and die.
- Messy
As plants grow, they will shed old leaves. Depending on the species, this can amount to shedding a few leaves every other week or a daily fall. In addition, when plant care is insufficient or a plant goes into hibernation, it can look dull and droopy.
Placement for Perfect Indoor Plant Design
Indoor plant design starts like every other form of design – with inspiration and a plan. Once you know where is best for your plants, you can put your ideas into practice. But keep in mind that all living plants will need some light even if it’s from afar.
Green Pops on Shelves
Interior decorating with plants can be so simple. With beautiful pots and fitting plants, you can add pops of color to your interior. Place one or two pretty plants on open shelves – one higher than the other – for a pleasing asymmetrical look. This can work in any interior style.
Dangling from the Ceiling
Whether you have a small or big room, interior decorating with plants doesn’t have to take up any space. Kokedama and hanging baskets, for instance, hang from the ceiling via C-hooks. So they’ll be out of the way but still bring the pleasure of refreshing greenery. You can install these in the bathroom, bedroom, study, or wherever you need to keep surfaces clear.
As Wall Art
Through contemporary design, plants can even sit happily on a wall. This can be geometric wall mounts for air plants or even a vertical herb garden depending on your space. You can make the arrangement as elaborate as you want. What’s more, walls make great surfaces for house plants in interior design as they take up next to no space.
Complementing a Statement Light
Vines combined with a pendant light can make a beautiful statement. In fact, you can turn an ordinary space into something memorable. Simply add a plant, like Devil’s Ivy, a sweetheart, or a climber air plant, by wrapping its vines around the frame of a feature light. This can be above a dining table, sofa, or bathtub.
Green Room Divider
A living room design is so much more fun with plants. It can go beyond mere decoration and into functional design. For instance, instead of a panel or screen, large potted palms and fig trees can double as a divider.
Want to include plants in your interior design?
Not only can you perfect your indoor plant design, but you can also create your dream interior with professional online design services. Want to learn more? Then schedule a Free Online Interior Design Consultation today!
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