Making a House a Home With Plants
The finishing touch to your space that makes it come alive.
White Fusion Calathea
Plants!! I love their quirky and unique look. I love their architecture and ability to breathe life into a space. They’re great. Unfortunately (for them), I have a black thumb. I’ve learned through many plant funerals that I do not have the green touch to keep my plants thriving. I need low-maintenance plants that match the environment my home offers. The answer? Solabee!
Solabee is a full-service floral studio and plant shop in Portland, Oregon. Last fall, I met with Colleen, one of their plant technicians, to assess the state of my plants. We worked to identify the best plants for my house based on climate, light, style, and definitely durability. She helped me nurse my existing plants back to health, even the plant in my office with a nasty thrips bug infestation! Now, she comes every 3 weeks to water and tend to my plants, they’ve never looked better.
I have a unique home in that yes there are lots of windows and skylights, yet the direct light is sparse. We are surrounded by trees, and the gloomy Portland winters don’t help. While my home is limited to lower-light plants, I still have plenty of options. The range of varieties for each species is vast; there’s over 70 types of snake plants (Sansevieria) alone! For my home, Colleen recommended snake plants (Sansevieria), ZZ plants (Zamioculcas zamiifolia), Pothos (Epipremnum aureum), and Philodendron to name a few. From there, we selected a variety of plants within those recommendations and started sourcing pots!
The great thing about plants is they grow, they change, and they explore the area you place them in. Their pot is not the extent of their presence, they can drape down your shelves and decorate in their own special way. Having plants draping from a higher shelf or floor railing pulls attention to the height of a room, making it feel taller. It’s a similar concept to how window drapes draw the eye’s attention up.
What’s more, plants can make you feel better. You know how a walk outside in the park can make you feel better, fresher even? Well, you can emulate that feeling in your own home, with… shocker, plants. Aside from being mini air purifiers, plants ground a space with an lively earthy presence. In the space below, I have two live plants, one in a washable paper bag (UASHAMA) and the other in a funky striped pot (Jungalow). Adding the plants made the space feel so much more like home to me.
The living room of the Treehouse.
Pots (or bags) are a great opportunity for character in a space. I like to source locally whether that’s a local plant shop like Solabee, a pottery shop, or thrift shops can have really unique (and sustainable) finds. One thing to keep in mind when sourcing is the drainage/functionality of the pot. The pot is your plant’s home, so it better be a good fit. Your local plant shop or someone like Colleen can guide you towards pots or solutions for your existing pots. Before meeting Colleen, I bought pots based on look over function, which didn’t work for some of my plants (oops). Now, I keep a lot of my plants in their original plastic (inside the pots) for ease of watering, drainage, and adjusting. Remember, it’s all a learning process.
Since I’ve done a lot of the “learning process", here’s a brief story on my thrips infested split leaf Philodendron (above). I bought this at probably a home improvement store or grocery store, where nasty plant bugs are prevalent. I also potted it in a super cute pot without drainage. When I thought all was lost, Colleen explained the issue and the solution. “Because it doesn’t have drainage, it can’t flush anything out of it, and any problems it has get stuck in the plant”. Your plants need to detox just like you do. Over time, Colleen cut back the infected pieces, allowing for new growth, and repotted the plant in a fabric pot with a layer of rocks at the bottom (triage drainage). This isn’t fool proof, but she enabled me to keep my cute pot and my plant to recover.
Parting Thoughts: My style is largely based on feel, how does the space impact my well being? Plants contribute a lot of positive energy to my spaces, therefore my home is filled with them! Start with one plant, test out how it alters your space and its needs match your schedule. You don’t have to rush into being a plant mom, start small and build from there. If you’re someone who isn’t able to care for plants or has some other conflict (pets, allergies, etc.), there are faux options too!
Happy Planting!