Bringing a living thing into your home decor scheme can be one of the most interesting and rewarding aspects of designing a room. After all, most of the items in your room won’t grow or change–at least they won’t change for the better! Nurturing a houseplant is rewarding in and of itself, but the vibrancy and texture of its changing, growing, reaching life span can also add dynamism to your space. Because of your house plant, that space quite literally will not be the same in a few months as it is now. They become almost a room refresher on their own!
Is it any wonder that house plants have become such a home design craze of late? Not really. We’ve always loved to have living things in our homes, from the practical little pots of herbs your grandmother grew in her window sill, to the aloe your aunt broke a piece off of every time you got a sunburn, to the lucky bamboo your uncle gave everyone for the holidays, to the cherished exotic cactus someone brought back to your mom from Arizona, indoor plants have long offered our rooms an interactive interest point. Whether succulents, dracaenas, snake plants, crotons, philodendrons, or jade plants, the perfect plant for you and your space is just waiting to be discovered.
Plants have needs: water, sunlight, space. You need to keep all that in mind when you bring them into a room, but the creative ways you meet their needs and your design aesthetic can truly be magical. If you’re not sure how to incorporate house plants into your home, take a look at these decor havens for house plants.
1 – Corner between two windows
If you’ve got a room with an open corner, you may have the perfect spot for a real statement plant to thrive. Something like a Fiddle Leaf Fig or a Rubber Tree could be perfect. These plants are fun, they change and spread over time, and they can take up a lot of visual real estate.
2 – Beside sliding doors or other external doors
Often overlooked spaces in home decor can be great places for plants. We tend not to put furniture close to our external doors like patio sliders or french doors out to a backyard or deck. These places tend to have lots of light for plants that need it, and could often use the extra pizazz of some greenery.
3 – Rooms with large south-facing windows
If you’ve got a room with large south-facing windows, that’s a good place to put plants. With big, tall windows, chances are much of your room gets enough light for many different plant types which means you can place plants all around your room and not worry that they’ll get enough sun. This is a great way to add little pops of greenery around a room.
4 – Deep windowsills
Wide windowsills are a great place for plants, even if your windows are north-facing, being able to set your plants right on the sill means you can find many varieties that will thrive. This is always a good way to really bring the outdoors in, especially if you live in an area where your outside view isn’t very green.
5 – Kitchen window
Not only are plants beautiful in a kitchen, they can be useful, too. Keep pots of some of your favorite herbs in your kitchen window to liven up your dishes and your decor. It’s also easy to keep kitchen window plants watered since you have a faucet right beside them!
6 – Built-ins with countertops
If you have built-in cabinets with countertops, like a butler’s pantry or a wet bar, that you don’t use heavily, those can be great spots to create a little haven for houseplants. Because you can place the plants on a countertop surface that is most likely designed for a kitchen environment, you don’t have to worry about whether a little moisture escapes your pot.
7 – Small spaces
You might not have a lot of extra space, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have room for big house plant statements. With just a small gap between furniture, you can create an incredible spot for a big-talking plant like a Fiddle Leaf Fig.
8 – Lots of small plants for full rooms
It’s easy to think you don’t have room for plants, but the great thing about plants is that they come in every shape and size. Choose smaller potted plants, as in this room, for a green look without setting aside a lot of space for plants alone.
9 – Window cluster
Depending on your window exposures and the shape of your room, you may need to keep your plants clustered close to the window. Or you may want to do it for aesthetic reasons. There’s something truly beautiful about a room with a little section of green at one end or the other.
10 – Stairway window
Not all windows are in the rooms we pause and spend time in. But pass-through spaces still get a lot of use and deserve some greenery too! Consider creating little greenscapes in your less used spaces. They may be great places for plants.
11 – Dedicated plant shelf
While you can certainly make space for your new plant friends within existing decor, there’s nothing wrong with carving out some special space for them. Graduated shelving beside a window works really well to give your plants a lot of space and light.
12 – Multi-height staging
One way to create a story with your plants is to take a small area or corner and create a multi-height configuration for a few plants together. Here, potted floor plants, a plant on a stand, and a plant on a shelf combine to give visual variation to your plant display.
