Greenery provides one of the easiest, most cost-efficient opportunities to upgrade the home décor and make it more welcoming and relaxing. Choosing the right plants is first and foremost about your gardening experience level. Once this consideration is out of the way, you can start styling each room with plants.
The entryway is the part of the flat that welcomes you and guests into the home. Thus, you need some visually-stunning greenery to set the mood.
Also, many entryways lack a lot of natural light. That’s something to keep in mind when selecting plants for this part of the house.
Ferns are a good choice for the entryway because they add some texture and they can live comfortably in shady areas. Other good choices include caladium and bleeding heart. The last plant mentioned blossoms in a beautiful way if you remember to water it regularly.
A few other good indoor plant choices for entryways include fiddle leaf fig, philodendron, croton plant with its beautiful coloured leaves, Kentia palm and winterbourne.
Greenery in the living room reduces stress by creating a serene ambiance.
Usually, living rooms have several different zones you’ll need to pick plants for. The area underneath a window or a window ledge will be ideal for sun-loving species. The opposite end of the room can house shade-loving greenery.
Some of the best plants to place by a window include bird of paradise, anthurium (it produces some incredibly beautiful and colourful flowers), peace lily and coin plant.
If you have shelves and you’d like to add some greenery to those, cascading pothos would be a good pick.
For living rooms that don’t feature that much light, choose a hardy and low-maintenance option like snake plant.
Finally, if your living room isn’t that big, opt for a vertically-growing plant. Dracaena Compacta is an excellent example of a plant that looks striking – it grows tall, its leaves are beautifully decorative but it doesn’t require a lot of horizontal space.
Plants that purify the air (NASA has a list of the best ones) will improve the conditions in your bedroom. Greenery can also enhance your mood and even impact creativity. This is why you need to choose the plants for one of the most personal spaces in the house carefully.
English ivy is a good example of a functional bedroom plant. It’s a cascading option, which means it will easily create a bit of movement. In addition, English ivy can absorb benzene, xylene, formaldehyde, toluene and other toxins from the air. It requires moderate light and regular watering to thrive.
Lavender is also a great pick. It’s a well-known fact that in aromatherapy, lavender oil is used to promote relaxation. The delicate scent of the plant can easily contribute to better sleep. Lavender prefers south-facing windows and direct sunlight. Also, it doesn’t require frequent watering, which is great for forgetful plant parents.
A few other noteworthy bedroom plant choices include lady palm (beautiful decorative appearance, low maintenance plant), rubber plant (great for small spaces – grows vertically), Chinese evergreen (tolerates low light excellently) and dracaena (purifies the air and has a striking appearance).
The plant line-up for the dining area can be pretty much the same as the plants you’d choose for the living room. In many Singaporean flats, these two spaces are connected and the conditions are quite similar.
When it comes to the kitchen, there are going to be a few additional considerations.
Usually, kitchens are more humid than other parts of the flat (excluding the bathroom). Also, you’ll have limited counter space and the selection of large plants isn’t going to be optimal.
One of the simplest, cleverest and most functional choices for the kitchen is the selection of potted herbs. Not only will the greenery please the eye, you’ll also get a source of fresh flavours for your culinary experiments.
Aloe vera is another good choice. It doesn’t require a lot of space and it’s a hardy choice. Just like herbs, aloe plants are very functional – if you burn yourself while cooking, you’ll only need to cut a small portion of a leaf to apply to the injured area.
If you want something a bit more decorative, pick the cast iron plant. It’s ideal for kitchens because it can tolerate humidity, dryness and low light. Conditions in the kitchen change all the time, which is why you need a hardy plant that will enjoy whatever’s happening in the cooking corner.
When designing their home and styling with indoor plants, many people will omit the bathroom. After all, most bathrooms feature only artificial light and they’re dark for the vast majority of time. Can any kind of plant thrive in such conditions? The short answer is yes.
Tropical plants are a very good choice for the bathroom. They can withstand humidity and high temperatures. Low light levels are also not a problem for the vast majority of tropical plants grown indoors.
Ferns and air plants can also be placed in the bathroom without worries about their longevity.
Let’s look at a couple of specific plants that you may want to try out for this space.
Growing bamboo in containers in the bathroom will give you some beautiful lushness. It grows rapidly, which means you should control its propagation by cutting and shaping the plant in a way that fits the design of the bathroom and the available space.
Bird’s nest fern is one of the easiest ferns to keep alive indoors. It loves moisture and it’s an ideal hanging plant that doesn’t require lots of space. A few other good bathroom picks include tillandsia or air plant, gardenias (a beautiful and very fragrant tropical flower), bromeliads and croton.
To sum it up, think of the conditions in each space before choosing plants. The available area for pot placement is another key consideration that will help you choose a beautiful decoration and not an oversized burden.
And if you need some assistance to make things truly impressive, get in touch with us! Our home interior design team love to help you pick the plants that correspond both to your space and your personality. We promise you – meeting both goals is possible if you know the options, their pros and cons.
