How To: Style Indoor Plants

Designing and displaying your plant collection willbring you a new appreciation of your plant family, sofollow me on the road to plant-styling perfection.

By following certain natural laws of styling and arranging objects, we can create vignettes that are pleasing to the eye. These rules are universal and they apply equally to our indoor plants; once you learn them, you will be amazed at how your indoor plants sing as a part of your interior.







 

Any container is a pot

This is my excuse for buying almost any vessel that takes my fancy and including it in my styling arsenal of pots and planters. Seriously, there are so many beautiful bowls, vases, glasses, baskets, jugs and jars to collect, and there will be a plant that will sit perfectly in nearly every one. ‘But the opening is too small for a plant,’ I hear you say. Tell that to the mini air plant (Tillandsiaionantha) that sits ever so perfectly on top!



This is one of the main reasons why I grow all my plants in plastic nursery pots, which I like to think of as underwear for plants. The fun comes when you dress up your plants – you can change their outer, decorative pots whenever you like. Remember, a cheap plastic pot can be easily cut down with a pair of scissors to fit a shallower container, and plants can be placed on top of upturned plastic saucers or containers to lift them to the perfect height in deeper vessels. Any piece that isn’t water resistant – such as a woven rope basket, felt laundry bin or wooden bowl, for example – only needs a plastic saucer placed in the base. Use rigid, deep-profile saucers as they are less likely to spill when you lift them out. They also act as a solid base for fabric and woven holders, helping them to hold their shape.







 

Mix your greens

Don’t worry too much about creating displays that have the correct level of bright light for each plant, unless you want them to stay put in one position for a long period of time. Personally, I find it great fun to create ‘moments’ with my plants on coffee or console tables, sideboards, podiums, bedside tables, window ledges or, for larger pots, the floor. I mix plant types like hairy white cacti with variegated tropicals or sculptural succulents with flowering orchids, focusing more on how the shapes, colours and textures work together than their individual care requirements.



Most plants will tolerate low light for 2–3 weeks and some much longer, so as soon as you get tired of the display or a plant starts to tell you it needs more light because it’s leaning towards the window, move it to a brighter position. Don’t be afraid to mix fresh cut flowers, leaves or cuttings in vases with potted plants for a fresh take on botanical design – they go together beautifully and, again, it’s a bit unexpected so carries more design weight.

 

READ MORE

This is an edited extract from Green Thumb, by Craig Miller-Randle, published by Plum, RRP$44.99, photography by Mark Roper and Craig Mir-Randle.