How to Integrate Plants Into Your Holiday Decor
If you’re not big on buying plastic decorations for the holidays, we put together some fresh ideas for easy holiday decor with potted plants. Green is the most prominent color in winter decorating, so houseplants just fit the vibe!
On top of bringing some winter color and festivity into your home space, these holiday houseplants make amazing gifts that are always well-received. Here are some cool ideas for decorating with houseplants in the winter season!
Houseplant Holiday Trees
Not everyone has enough space for a full evergreen tree in their living room or office, so why not opt for some alternative Christmas tree houseplants? There are plenty of varieties you can choose from—some look more traditional, while some are a little more unique. Some aloes, haworthias, and sansevierias have sturdier foliage that fans out, so they can hold ornaments without buckling.
Shaggier houseplants like the selaginella frosty fern have a slightly more traditional look, but may have thinner branches and can only hold lightweight ornaments. That being said, you can still totally decorate these houseplants with smaller ornaments, lights, or ribbons if you like! A small string of battery-operated, silver or copper wire fairy lights will be the perfect length and weight, and they’re very inexpensive.
Succulent Wreaths
Succulents are some of the most versatile houseplants for decorating because their shallow root systems allow for them to be potted in non-traditional mediums. A wreath with a thick layer of peat moss is the perfect base for a succulent arrangement, and the finished results can be stunningly gorgeous.
While you can find some premade, we always recommend trying to create your own! Homemade decor and gifts are always so much more special. Search for a DIY tutorial online that’s suitable for your style and skill level, and grab a colorful assortment of fresh succulents like echeveria, haworthia, or senecio.
Glittery Gold and Sparkling Silver
Shiny, metallic decor is a hallmark of the winter season, and there are plenty of houseplants frosted and glittered with gold and silver hues. Naturally, they look beautiful in our homes all year round, but they seem to be especially bright and luminous during a cold December.
Peperomia frost and silver splash pothos have an icy silver frost coating their foliage. They look gorgeous paired with other cool tones like navy blue, cool evergreen, crisp snow-white, and berry red. Gold dust croton and golden pothos are speckled with a vivid gold that complements warm tones like rich burgundy, copper, yellow-greens, and ivory.
Decorative Pots
If you already have a pretty impressive houseplant collection, why not give the pots a holiday makeover? Containers are an easy way to bring some festive color and even a bit of sparkle to your indoor scenery. Get creative with paints, fabrics, bows, and ornaments. If you have any shorter, leftover clippings of gift ribbon, instead of throwing them out, you can use it for cute bows to tie around your planters.
While you could technically repot your houseplants into new winter containers, you’d have to keep them in there for several months since it’s not a good idea to repot too often. If you don’t want to commit to a winter style for that long, you can buy some slightly larger holiday pots as an alternative and just stick your current pots inside them.
Bold Red Accents
If you’re in search of some indoor holiday planter decorating ideas, we have plenty of all-red or variegated red houseplants in store! For high-impact Christmas color, we love combining assorted red and green houseplants in a big display on the mantle or in a centerpiece.
A smaller euphorbia, a red candy cane striped cryptanthus, or a neoregelia fireball would make an awesome addition to a mixed arrangement, whereas larger houseplants with red accents like the tropical anthurium make nice standalone features.
Tillandsia Ornaments
Tillandsia (also known as air plants) don’t need pots full of soil or even a thin layer of peat moss to thrive like most other houseplants. They’re comfortable out in the open air, which makes them a useful decorating piece! You can buy spiral metal hangers to hold your tillandsia and suspend them from hooks, so we recommend hanging several in the window on different lengths of string or even hanging them on the Christmas tree. Some are green, some are red, and some have splashes of both, so you have plenty of options!
Clustered Centerpieces
The easiest way to put together a tricked-out centerpiece without much effort is by gathering a bunch of decorations in different sizes and colors and just clustering them together. We love the idea of a few smaller houseplants, plus a bunch of tiny potted cuties arranged together with some decorative accents to tie everything together.
Purchasing one of our plant multipacks is an easy way to get a bunch of small, style coordinated houseplants at once. Colorful houseplants with upright growth like pleomele look nice in the center surrounded by shorter pots. Some suitable accessories to add some finishing touches include glass ornaments, pinecones, fresh fruit like clementine oranges, evergreen cuttings, fairy lights, and tall candlesticks that won’t burn too close to the leaves.
For all the last-minute gift ideas and winter decorations you could ever possibly need, see what’s new at Plant Decor Shop, ready to be shipped to your door! And since shopping for houseplants is always a treat in itself, you can give gift cards to the hard-to-buy-for folks on your list, so they can choose exactly what they love.
