9 Great Ways to Decorate with Plants
It’s an all-too-familiar experience: bringing home a medley of new plants and having literally zero ideas where to put them. It takes some effort to find inventive ways to display your houseplants without taking up all the available real estate! One only has so many windowsills.
The good news is, we kinda have a thing for collecting houseplants, so we’ve gotten pretty crafty with ways of integrating plants into modern home decor. If you’re in need of some creative inspo to freshen up your living space, take a look through our nine favorite houseplant decor trends for this season.
Get on the Floor
You don’t need a designer budget to create a magazine-ready look with your houseplants! Arranging groups of plants of the floor is great for achieving a minimalist look that comes off as both polished and welcoming. The trick to pulling off the look is to mix up the plant heights and group them up in odd numbers. Try arranging a 4-inch, 6-inch and 8-inch pot together near a sliding glass door or floor-length window and watch how it transforms the space! For an even more cohesive display, place the pots inside wicker or canvas baskets.
Warm the Bench
Want to add some life to a small, blank wall? A simple wooden bench makes a low-profile, yet striking, plant stand! The rustic or vintage look works in your favor when putting your plant bench together, so search on Craigslist or your fave thrift store before dropping a bundle at Pottery Barn. Even a small bench can usually hold a ton of houseplants, so don’t be afraid to nestle in as many as you want. (Just say you’re building “bench strength!”) Finish the look by hanging a large mirror on the wall behind the bench; it will pull the design together while bouncing extra light onto your plants.
Plant Centerpieces
While a vase of fresh flowers makes a gorgeous centerpiece, all those blooms add up very quickly. You can get that same vibrant, lively look by using live plants as centerpieces instead! A centerpiece should complement the size of the table, so make sure the plant or plant grouping leaves plenty of tablespace for your dishes, glasses, and serveware. Avoid using plants that are more than a foot tall—you don’t want to block anyone’s view! Instead, opt for shorter, mounded plants or a group of three small ones.
Gallery Wall with Floating Shelves
Floating shelves are the secret weapon of any bonafide houseplant addict. Try using a few small shelves spaced out across the wall amongst a mix of different sized canvases, then add a few potted succulents and some trailing plants like pothos or string of pearls. Work with different heights and levels to achieve some balance and visual interest. Really make use of those skills you gained from playing Tetris back in the day—you gotta find the best way to fit all those different shapes into one rectangular wall! Alternatively, you could install a few extra-long floating shelves, one above the other, and fill each one with a mix of framed photos, houseplants, artwork, and other accent pieces.
Peg Board Shelving
If you love the concept of a gallery wall but don’t trust yourself with a level and power drill, peg boards make it easy to get the look without all the measuring. The pegs make it easy to insert shelves and brackets in minutes, while the grid format makes it easy to get creative with perfectly-aligned arrangements. Plus, if you like to change up your decor every season, switching out the design is a cinch. Put a few up in your home office to become the envy of everyone in your Zoom calls.
Living Green Canvas
Is there anything more visually satisfying than a lush, green wall full of glossy plants? That double impact of color and texture adds so much energy and life into a space—plus, the air purifying effects of that many plants will make a considerable difference in your home’s air quality. Some common houseplants that can handle life on the vertical axis include:
There are plenty of DIY tutorials available online for making your own living green canvas frame, and some can even be equipped with irrigation systems, so you don’t even have to worry about watering them. While it takes a reasonable amount of set-up to get it assembled and hung, the finished results are a whole other level of gorgeous. Living walls are also a perfect way to display houseplants that freshen air better in your home!
Room Dividers
Pick up some large, backless shelves and position them so they extend outward from the wall. Secure them into place so they don’t tip over, cover those shelves with as many plants as possible, and boom! Not only do you have a vibrant plant display that holds tons of containers—now you’ve got a redesigned room layout that gives you so many more options for arranging furniture. They’re perfect for sectioning off a cozy reading nook or a private corner that you can turn into your makeshift work-from-home office.
Spruce Up The Bar
Decorating your bar (or bar cart) with potted plants is like the cherry on the sundae. It completes the look and adds some bold color to offset all the metal and glassware. Even if you don’t have a full bar setup, we love the idea of having shelves of assorted glassware and small houseplants. Glasses are transparent, so it’s not like they’re going to be blocking the sunlight from reaching your plants!
Hanging Glass Terrariums
If the macrame hangers are a bit too ‘70s “cottagecore” for your tastes, might we suggest opting for some sleek glass terrariums? We really dig the 3D geometric shapes they come in, and while they look just fine perched on a desk or side table, they look so lovely hanging in front of a window. While you can technically fill them with soil, since the containers are transparent and elevated, you might not love the look of visible dirt. Instead, we recommend trying an alternative soil medium, like pebbles, sand, peat moss, or water.
For an ultra-minimalist approach, just toss in a few air plants—no planting medium needed! For a little extra flair, you can try weaving in some LED lights to create a dreamy, twinkling display that illuminates the room at night.
Houseplants really do breathe new life into a space, and being cooped up indoors feels a heck of a lot nicer when you’re surrounded by nature. Ready to stock up on some new greenery for your home base? Visit Plant Decor Shop online to browse our full collection—from popular classics to the trendiest new houseplants of 2020!
