Fe Fi Faux Plants - How to Use Fake in Your Decor

February 18, 2013

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Faux, fake or silk plants and floral is fine in your home decorating IF you use it sparingly and they are displayed to look as if the real thing. The whole point of fake is that it looks realistic and doesn't require watering or weekly replacement. Good for us, that there are some beauties out there for us to choose. Here are some rules to use when buying or styling your spaces with faux floral.

1.) Be in-tuned to current styles. Page through shelter magazines, websites, blogs and such to get the scoop on the latest trends and styles. If you've got ivy perched on top of your China Cabinet, Armoire or Entertainment unit, please remove it. Using ivy to adorn the tops of things went out with the dress-up Goose. Instead, re-house the ivy in a rustic glazed urn or colorful pot and add it to an appropriate counter or table as a welcomed accent.

An Ivy Issue... (from uglyhousephotos.com)

Ivy housed in a glazed pot.

2.) Make sure it looks real. From color palette, texture, scale, etc. when shopping, make sure the product is as close to nature as you can get. If shopping for a large tree or floor plant - Think how this species would look in nature.

Fern Terrarium by NDI

Trees should look as if in nature.

3.) Make sure it 'could' grow. I've seen ficus trees in the oddest places, mostly in some dark corner of a windowless room - Common sense says plants need light to grow, so place it near a window where it can pretend to grow.

Ficus tree in dark corner (Photo: Source)

Place faux trees near a window to mimic a real one.

4.) Floral Arrangements should look too as if a professional florist put it together for an occasion, a store bought or garden arrangement you added to a vase or as an artistic statement for the style of your home. A mega sized rose in an urn arrangement on your dining room table says "My daughter just got married, or I wish I was living at Downton Abbey." Stay true to the bones of your home as well as what would be appropriate (an affordable) if real.

Look for faux floral that are appropriate

5.) Display floral in 'season.' Tulips, daffodils, forsythia and forced branches are perfect now, sunflowers, not so much. Consider rotating out or refreshing your floral as the seasons change.

6.) Consider the purpose of the room. A 4 foot vase and sticks is not great on the TV room's cocktail table, a tree in place of the refrigerator in a vacant staged home can't fool anyone and an ivy line powder room shelf, is only a dust collector. Instead, add the curly willow arrangement on your entry table and add just a simple square vase with fresh eucalyptus from your local grocery store.

Curly Willow from Vickerman

7.) Use a Light Hand. Acres of fake floral or trees or plants adorning your home is too much, the best rule of thumb is to use the rule of three. One large, medium and small in a large room and one or two in a small room. Too much of anything looks like your hoarding.