If you want to add a little bit of color and life to your living space- and who doesn’t want that these days?- then you’ve come to the right place on the internet.
This article will highlight 27 houseplant ideas you can add to your living space.
Houseplants have a unique way of livening up a room and adding a relaxing atmosphere to any space.
But in addition to being a favorite option for decorating enthusiasts, houseplants can also improve your health.
They can enhance the air quality in your home and improve your overall well-being, whether you put them on a windowsill or in a shady corner of the living room.
Surrounding ourselves with various houseplant ideas and caring for plants also helps us reconnect with nature.
And, as the Botanical Boys have said, “Connecting with the natural world is more important than ever. In this fragile and fast-paced world we live in today, sometimes all it takes is to slow down and observe nature—it’s the one thing keeping us alive.”
It’s easy to reap all the benefits of houseplants. No matter the size of your home, there’s sure to be room for one leafy beauty or two houseplant ideas, from small bonsai trees to towering palms and figs that can brighten up a mantlepiece, filter light from a windowsill, or even help split an open living room plan.
They can add texture and contrast to the simplest decor, turn a boring row of shelves into a stunning look, or add a stylish touch to a new coffee table or kitchen island.
So why not discover how to transform your humble abode with these creative houseplant ideas?
27 Ways to Transform Your Home With Houseplant Ideas
Whether it’s lining up trailing plants on shelves, tucking ferns into pockets against white walls, or grouping cacti on side tables, there’s a display case for every room.
Bromeliads will add a tropical touch to the interior of a cool city while flowering cacti will give a country cottage a desert touch.
Here, we will share our top tips for displaying foliage around the house with our houseplant ideas.
With the right conditions and a little tender loving care, it should be able to keep that fresh feeling all year round.
Make a Centerpiece With a Fern Houseplant
A potted fern is a stunning focal point. It adds a pop of color to a sumptuously dark room. Make a beautiful fern centerpiece on your dining table.
You’ll add a simple yet eye-catching feature that will make any simple weeknight dinner, brunch, or breakfast a little more special.
In terms of varieties to choose from, the Boston fern is a popular and easy-care option, but there are other impressive options, such as the delicate hairy maidenhair.
Don’t you think every dining table needs a beautiful centerpiece to enhance the ambiance?
Plant Up a Picture
Use plants as living art to see plants from a different perspective. These clever frames from Botany Guys can accommodate pairs of plants, perfect for livening up a plain wall or adding an organic touch to a functional space.
Arrange them tightly in rows or grids, where the plants will grow to hide their planting pockets, creating the look of a lush wall; plants with similar foliage tones work best with these houseplant ideas.
Otherwise, treat them like painterly masterpieces, choosing brightly colored foliage (try devil’s ivy and philodendron) and spacing the frames evenly. You can also create a similar effect on an exterior wall.
Introduce a Hanging Rail
It is a simple yet effective way to create an impression. Let the plants do the talking en masse along the hanging display rail.
Create a special houseplant wall by hanging different types of plants on a hanging rail. A simple curtain rod can be turned into a handy DIY shelf to create a plant wall display.
An easy and quick way to make an impression with greenery, it will instantly transform a nook, a blank wall, or a less attractive view.
Change the plants to customize the final look to suit your space. Rows of compact, sun-loving succulents such as Echeveria and Houseleeks will create an elegant, clean environment.
At the same time, a mix of tall, peaceful, shiny-leaved lilies, ferns, and trailing ivy will evoke a sensation more tropical.
Hang Them High
This is one for the real plant lover. If you have enough ceiling space, now is the time to make good use of it. You will love how it will beautify nature with tons of fresh leaves.
Ferns and trailing plants will give you a lush canopy. Pots and hanging baskets attached to beams in the center of your living space will create this effect.
You can also add larger potted plants to line the room’s edges, and some in the corner are another perfect place to hang house plants.
The result? A refreshing color palette of soft, neutral green tones that looks completely inviting.
Give the Shelves a Lift
Great for storage and making the most of wall spaces, shelves are also perfect for houseplant ideas opportunities.
Liven up the shelves by mixing plants of different shapes and sizes. Choose from upright, trailing plants and small potted beauties. There are plenty of options to try.
Follow a few simple tips to give your display the right design touch. For a unified look, choose similar-shaped pots in one color.
Place the trailing plants on the higher shelves so that they have enough space to stretch out.
Upright beauties, like Mother-in-law’s Tongue, need plenty of height, but they should stay within the overall “grid” of the shelves to maximize impact and prevent them from looking cluttered. You can check out these selections at Patch Plants.
Welcome Calm to Your Workspace
“Using houseplants in your workspace can help improve creativity and productivity,” Kenneth Freeman of foli8 says. If you’re short on space, choose a small table plant like Begonia Rex’ Indian Summer’ to add a striking pop of color, thanks to its pink-red foliage and unique shape and pattern.” Stress at work will never weigh you down again with a serene set-up!
Or, you could add character to the space with a hanging plant, like a climbing fig, that can be pulled from a shelf.
Low-light plants like the Monstera Monkey Leaf plant are a perfect choice if your workspace is darker than other rooms in your home.
Add Character to Your Kitchen Herbs With Teapot Planters
Choose planters with characters, such as teapots and mugs, to add an element of fun to practical kitchen plants. Put a handful of large rocks in the bottom to ensure the soil has a drainage feature, and of course, do not overwater it.
Not only can this one of the houseplant ideas enhance your decor, but with the wide range of scents and spices often brought up in the kitchen, plants are a great way to keep the air fresh and clean in the kitchen.
Use a Salad Burnet to enhance your kitchen herb vocabulary beyond the usual thyme, parsley, sage, cool cucumber flavor, rosemary, and green crisp.
Salad Burnet is a great idea for small spaces, as it exists in a kind of suspended animation and will never grow too big or tall.
Design a Leafy Divider
Do you need to cozy up or zone an open-concept living space? Try using a group of large potted plants as a divider. “Three potted plants make a natural screen.”
Not only will they go well pulled close together, with their different leaf shapes, colors, and markings, but these tall beauties will also allow daylight to filter into different parts of the room gently.
Look for upright, multi-stemmed ficus species such as the large-leaved banjo fig, glossy-leaved Java fig, or the iconic Ficus elastica rubber plant, and opt for square containers to create a neat, space-saving barrier.
Liven Up a Hallway
A living wall can make a statement in your hallway. Going large adds a sense of calm and grandeur to a cluttered hallway or staircase. A big-impact living wall planter instantly makes a space stylish.
A large potted plant placed on the ground in an empty corner is also an excellent option for unifying an awkward space and making it more comfortable.
Look for shade-lovers with large, glossy leaves, like Swiss cheese, dragon, or corn plants, as they will reflect light, add texture and tone, and help visually break up the sharp, angular lines of architraves, doorways and steps,
Invigorate The Bathroom With Plants
Bathrooms are usually bright, humid places, the perfect habitat for houseplant ideas. Fill your sterile, hard-edged room with leafy delights to give it a leafy boost.
Using bold colors such as navy, slate, and black has been a growing trend for gardens in recent years as they enhance the greenery.
These houseplant ideas denote that the darker the background, the more the natural tones of the leaves stand out.
If your bathroom is painted in a trendy dark shade, you won’t go wrong with filling it with lots of greenery. But which ones?
Boston ferns grow wild in moist, shady areas like swamps and forests,” says Patch plant doctor Megan Spink. They like moist, warm, and not-too-bright places.
When caring for ferns at home, the rule of thumb is never to let Boston ferns dry out. Make sure the soil is moist and the humidity level is high.
Many houseplants are small and easy to place on narrow window sills, bathroom edges, and even around the sink.
A large green giant will make bathing a more exotic experience, while a display above the bathroom adds a positive jungle vibe.
Cultivate a Terrarium
Reduce your stress level and get lost in a miniature landscape. Filled with intricate and fascinating shapes of tiny succulents and air plants and strewn with gravel and pebbles, the terrarium can become calming and absorbing.
Place it somewhere visible, on a coffee table or side table, so you can sit quietly with a cup and admire it. To ensure air-loving succulents are happy, look for a glass dome or lamp with an open top or side to ensure good ventilation.
Curate a Wall Display
Take houseplants to a whole new level, literally, with your curated wall display. This imaginative houseplant idea uses cube shelves hung on the wall between art prints to add real plants to the mix.
This type of display works best with low-maintenance plants, as it ensures that you don’t have to constantly attend to the foliage to keep it looking its best.
Try Bonsai Tree
Miniature trees create a magical feel. If you love a minimalist style, this neatly tended houseplant idea of a bonsai tree might be your perfect choice for a leafy fit.
Carefully maintained, its intricate shapes and textures look great in an alcove or the center of a coffee table against a simple, well-decorated background.
Detailed and intricate varieties such as yew, juniper, and pine are ideal for beginners as they grow slowly and tolerate different environments.
Highlight a True Beauty
Sometimes, a simple statement says more, so be brave and give a beautiful plant the space it deserves. Find a plant with a recognizable shape or unusual feature and place it center stage on a stool or side table.
Keep the surrounding area clean and prominent with a well-placed downlight or spotlight. The roots of this beautiful Schefflera are formed around lava rock and will add a Zen touch to any room.
Consider Utilizing Complimentary Colors
Complementary colors are those pairs of colors that live opposite each other on the color wheel, and when they are put together, they tend to pop.
Shades of green and shades of red/pink are complementary, so placing plants in red or pink areas will give a bold pizzazz.
Play with Display
Think of houseplant ideas as you would for accessories, and look for shapes, colors, and patterns that appeal to you.
When organizing into groups, use stools, low tables, and shelves to create different tiers, placing plants at different heights to avoid a cluttered look.
If you’re short on space, line smaller varieties on windowsills and mantelpieces, or create an elegant hanging display with suspending terrariums and overturned planters. Just find the ideal position for your plants.
Create a Hanging Display
Want something a little different? Gather some trail plants and make features out of them. Hang them in front of a window or over a light or stairway to show off their delicate shapes and leaves. Create a sculptural plant feature.
Get some simple glass ball planters from Amazon and hang them on a pan rack. If you want something more dramatic, why not frame them inside a metal plant stand with an additional wire grid?
Display on Different Levels
Use different heights to display your plants. Embrace an empty living room nook with a large trio of plants. Ideal for filling an empty corner or an awkward gap between seats, it will bring an element of greenery to the decor while adding a sculptural element.
Create an effect by choosing three different variations of offset heights. Or repeat the same type of plant in each container and use containers for extra height.
Look for pot sets of varying heights or use additional inverted pots as plinths to form a tiered effect. Erect species such as horsetail, sansevieria, or cacti accentuate the appearance and contribute to the striking impact.
Use Corners With Handy Brackets
Use a group of plants to add a decorative border to an empty corner of the room. Use simple wooden brackets to elevate plants out of the way so they don’t take up valuable space. Arrange the bracket racks so the plants hang down evenly to fill the space.
Show Off the Beauty of Trailers
Okay, this one of the houseplant ideas seems pretty obvious, but trailing plants look best when they have room to trail around.
Place them on a high shelf, hang them above the mantlepiece, or even on a high stool or a side table so that they overflow their planters and enchant with their elegant and often unusual shapes.
The beautiful string-of-pearls plant is an excellent trailer. Plant it in pots that can be taller than it, and make the pots wide to emphasize the tumbling shape.
Consider Colorful Foliage
Turn a coffee table, windowsill, or bookshelf into a beautiful, living work of art with a group of carefully selected leafy plants.
By repeating one type of plant in all its colorful variations, you can create a beautiful and unusual element that is perfect for any room.
Look for low-growing varieties with complex-colored foliage. Ivy, Tradescantia, and Fittonias work very well. These plants add a splash to their colorful patterns.
Containers in neutral and solid tones work best because they show off the different colors of the leaves. Arrange the plants in rows, rings, squares, or rectangles to suit your space. Sit back and enjoy your display as it progresses.
Plant a Sculptural Feature
Want to add boutique style to your space right away? Then, find a boldly shaped container to fill with plants. This is an easy way to make a statement in a prominent place, like a kitchen island or dresser. You can customize the look to complement your decor.
For best results, opt for a large, simple container or a vase with smooth sides (this will create a bold, contemporary silhouette) and plant several of the same plants. A large bowl-shaped vessel contributes to the contemporary feel.
Like a miniature peace lily, a low-growing, compact variety looks lush (you should also benefit from being a low-light houseplant).
Maidenhair ferns will create a soothing effect, and considering carnivorous pitcher plants, they make a real conversation piece.
Try Playing With Shapes
You can have a lot of fun mixing and matching cacti. Houseplant ideas of using plants to make an impact in the home are mostly a result of how they are displayed.
The right plant requires the right place to thrive, but it must match the room and decor. Eye-level plays a big part in this, so think carefully about showing the best side of your plants.
A row of knobby, bulbous cacti looks incredibly quirky and is arranged at eye level on a mantel, shelf, or console table.
Vary the heights, go for pots with character, and keep a simple, plain bottom for an eye-catching effect.
Mix Up Your Planters
When it comes to planters for your plants, don’t settle for plain. It’s easy to add a playful vibe to your space with bright colors and fun shapes.
Use a stunning character vase for placement or a brightly colored vase for decoration. Sure to grab attention with its bright color and design, try a golden design adorned with an eye-catching spider plant. These designs will make you and your guests smile.
Try Growing Plants Without Soil
Growing plants in water is not a new concept—hydroponics has been around for over 300 years, after all—but it is undoubtedly a spectacular design feature.
Perfect for adding interest to a fireplace, side table, or bathroom shelf, they look stylish and super contemporary, and it can be fascinating to watch a root grow.
Prick a mature plant, wash the growing compost directly into a water-filled jar, or grab a few leafy stems and watch the roots grow.
Plants such as philodendrons, trailing Tradescantia, African violets, and colorful coleus will thrive, as will Clusia rosea ‘Princess.’
Choose a bright spot protected from direct sunlight, and change the water regularly. Using mineral water will prevent the glass from scaling.
Create a Plant Gallery
It’s not just about employing houseplant ideas but also about how you choose to display them. If you’re lucky enough to have a sunny spot, why not create a gallery?
Look for attractive planters and hanging pots and place them at different heights to fill the space. You can choose a hanging terrarium for a corner feature or create your freestanding centerpiece.
Shallow bowls or glass hurricane vases are the perfect habitats for growing dry-weather houseplants like cacti and succulents on a side table.
Mix different leaf colors and shapes and encourage border plants to grow sideways so you can always see the outline of the container.
At the same time, moisture-loving ferns or peperomias prefer glass domes or lidded jars. For the finishing touch, add pebbles, wooden branches, and moss.
A combination of hanging and standing plants is a great way to create an informal atmosphere full of interest.
Choose Plants That You Can Care for
Although greenery has been proven to improve mood, there’s nothing like a wilted plant to make your day look a little blue. Be realistic with your green finger skills when considering these houseplant ideas.
Monstera (cheese plants), classic spider plants, spiky aloe vera, and lush aglaonemas are options anyone can grow. You can also look for the EasyCare plant range at Dobbies.
Happy home gardening!
