Plants can be a wonderful addition to both your indoor and outdoor space. Having a wide range of different plants in your garden is the perfect way to bring nature into your life, while indoor plants are a fantastic interior design element and will create a healthy, breathable atmosphere in your home. Choosing the right plants for your space is important because they can bring some interesting shapes and colors and present you with a fun challenge.
To help you choose the best greenery for your home, here are the top ways to diversify your plants.
1. Start With Plants which Are Easy to Look After
If you are new to gardening or horticulture, it is usually advisable to start with some plants which are easier to look after. Developing green fingers takes time and practice, so ease your way into it by picking up some particularly robust and hardy plants for your home and garden. Desert plants like cactuses are incredibly resilient and require only a small amount of water and attention to survive. Even if you forget to water them for ages, cactuses will live quite happily for weeks and weeks. Cactuses are also great because they come in so many different shapes and sizes, and some even have incredibly beautiful flowers. Small cactus varieties are perfect for windowsills or even for your desk.
2. Choose Some Other Succulents
Cactuses come from the succulent family, which is an incredibly diverse and interesting family of plants. There are many different types of succulents that would be a great addition to any home, but one really awesome one is aloe vera. These beautiful plants have big elongated blade-shaped leaves which stand up almost vertically. While their leaves do have some spikes, aloe vera plants are not cactuses. In full bloom, aloe vera has small yellow flowers, but the best bit about the plant is the medicinal properties of its aloe. This is good for everything from making health drinks to treating sunburn.
3. Grow Your Own Produce
Plants are not just for looking at; they can also feed you too. There are so many different types of fruit and vegetables that can be grown anywhere from your garden to your greenhouse to your window sill. Every country and region has its own climate and soil, so you will need to find out what kinds of produce grow best in your area if you plan to grow the plants outside. Otherwise, you can create the perfect artificial environment in your greenhouse or even use hydroponics to grow anything you like. With modern horticultural and agricultural methods, there no longer needs to be any limitations to what you can grow anywhere, anytime.
4. Minimize Your Greenery
Bonsai trees are some of the coolest plants you will find anywhere in the world, and they look so awesome inside or outside. These miniature trees originated in Japan but are now popular everywhere. Despite common misconceptions, bonsai trees are not an especially small species of trees. Rather they are ordinary seeds that are grown using special cultivation and pruning methods so that they remain small while retaining the same appearance as the full-sized version. There are hundreds of species of bonsai trees, and pruning them into shape is a real art form.
5. Add Some Statement Plants
Particularly in a big room, adding a real statement plant is as effective in terms of interior design as putting a large statue or painting in your home. If you have high ceilings, you can really go out and add a small potted tree like a juvenile palm tree in a beautiful ceramic pot. Alternatively, massive rubber plants look fantastic in a grand dining room or the hallway of your home. These plants can grow to a huge size so that you can have the pot at the base of your staircase and the leaves at the top hanging over the banister onto your second-floor landing. The great thing about rubber plants is they don’t actually need too much looking after them. During their dormant months, rubber plants only need watering a couple of times a month.
Plants are amazing, and with so many different species, it is easy to really diversify the ones in your home and garden. Mixing up plants from around the world is a wonderful way to celebrate all the diverse and rich species and create a wonderful indoor or outdoor environment. Try some of these tips, and your plants will be the envy of all your friends and neighbors.