3 Ways to Fuse Art and Nature in Your Home

(StatePoint) Beyond sprucing up your work and living environments, there’s certainly much to love about houseplants, whether it’s the simple act of taking care of something or the fact that some varietals can even improve the air quality in your home (peace lilies, we’re looking at you).

However, if you’re like many people who have done virtually everything from home this past year, your living room has turned into a veritable plant nursery. Rather than add more plants to your living spaces haphazardly, consider these easy tips from LiveTrends, a company that creates and designs over 500 original living art product collections each year:

Befriend color

When it comes to pots for your greenery, succulent and shrubs, you may think neutral is the way to go. Think again. Right now, it’s all about attention-grabbing colors, such as the mustard, navy and wine, which are featured in the Harvest Votive and Agatha styles from LiveTrends’ fall 2021 collection. When you fuse nature with bold hues, you can easily elevate a houseplant into art status. Bonus: You don’t have to shell out serious dough like you would for framed wall art or a sculpture.

Add joy

The pandemic accelerated the plant parent trend and many found themselves deeply embracing “biophilia,” or the innate desire to connect with nature -- from the great indoors that is. To give you a moment of joy during your day or even perk up your Zoom background, look for whimsical and fun plant designs.

MAke HolidAy SwApS

Add vitality to your holiday home decorating game by swapping in festive plants for elements in your regular lineup. During Halloween for example, LiveTrends offers designs like the delightfully ghoulish yogi skeleton mini plants, a collection of skeleton figures seated in Sukhasana pose. During the winter holiday season, their “Snomann” plants make a cute and festive addition to your mantel or tablescape.

For more design inspiration and tips or to view the latest collections, visit instagram.com/livetrendsdesign.

By fusing nature with art, you can elevate your houseplant collection and create truly beautiful living spaces in your home.

What’s the Deal with Peace Lilies?

Peace Lilies are a unique plant in that they possess a self-cleaning process for the air around them, neutralizing toxic airborne gases like benzene, formaldehyde, and carbon monoxide. They are also a popular indoor houseplant, due to its low maintenance.

Despite its name, however, peace lilies aren’t actually lilies, technically. Its scientific name is spathiphyllum, and it doesn’t come from the same family as “true” lilies, or the liliaceae family. One of the biggest tells in this plant being separate from other lilies is the lack of toxicity it poses to animals, as opposed to the highly dangerous and poisonous “true” lilies.

Are you interested in growing a green thumb, but aren’t sure where to start? Here’s some factors to consider when selecting a new houseplant for your home.

WATER LIGHT

An obvious essential to raising flowers, most plants need at least some water to thrive optimally. How “much” water varies from plant to plant. Most plants that are suitable for indoor habitats don’t require a lot of watering, and can even be at risk for over watering, such as the Ponytail Palm, the Sansevieria, and the Zamioculcas zamiifolia (also known as the ZZ Plant). Others, such as the Ficus Ginseng, Juniper Bonsai, and Peperomia Rosso require more frequent, scheduled watering. If you can’t remember when it was last watered or how much water is needed, a good rule of thumb when it comes to your plants is not to leave any standing water in the pot or tray after watering, and to let the soil dry to a mildly damp touch before watering again.

Much like water, the amount of light that a houseplant might need varies. There are houseplants like the Fatsia that need medium to low light, making them perfect for office spaces and any room that doesn’t get a whole lot of light. Other plants, like the Dracaena, may require bright, indirect sunlight or its leaves will start to pale in color. Make sure you doublecheck the amount of light a houseplant might need before you place it in its new home. Most houseplants that are suitable for indoors require a temperature at least at 60 degrees Fahrenheit. There are some that can survive at temperatures as low as 40 degrees, such as the Juniper Bonsai or Succulents, but even they aren’t immune to extreme temperatures, so keep them away from any environments that may rise to this temp. In general, you also want to keep indoor plants away from air conditioning or heating vents, as the hot or cold air blowing out might cause the plant to wilt unexpectedly.

TEMPERATURE

FERTILIZER

Many people think that fertilizer is mainly a concern for outdoor plants as well as crops, but the truth is even indoor plants need some soil food! Most houseplants usually only need fertilizer at half its strength once every other month during the warm growing months. Some might need houseplant food monthly during the warmer months, while other don’t really need any fertilizer unless their leaves have begun to wilt.