Plants As Art: Growing Your Interior Design

Born in the 70’s, my early memories include John Denver crooning from the over-played record about country roads taking him home. And though we lived in the city, my mother’s green thumb made our house feel a little more country garden than the busy four-lane thoroughfare outside our tall fence might suggest. Growing green served as much of my mother’s interior decorating, adding color and life to corners, swinging from the ceiling on braided chains, rustling in the breeze from the open windows in summer and fall.

How do you decorate with plants, bringing the outdoors in to your city space? Take a look at Design Sponge’s collection of creative ways to display your flora, from re-purposing goblets and mugs to verdant fern rooms.

Have you ever framed your foliage? “Airplantman” Josh Rosen creates frames to “plant a picture,” as Sunset Magazine highlighted in its June 2013 issue. All his work is created locally in California.

An added bonus of growing green inside? Plants that remove harmful toxins from your home. Be sure to befriend these beauties, best know for their detox habits, including the areca palm, known for adding moisture to your air, and the peace lily, which “excels in the removal of alcohols, acetone, trichloroethylene, benzene and formaldehyde.”  Because really?  Who needs formaldehyde in the kitchen?  Check out EnglishGardens.com for more ideas of healthy indoor plants and the best light for them to thrive.

Are you a DIY kind of designer?  A bike wheel, kitchen cooling rack, or a tree branch are other options Sunset suggests for hanging green in your home. I’d love to know how you decorate with indoor greens: please leave a note in the comments, or tweet a photo to us at @TheCityFarm and @RebeccaSnavely.

(Photos: Design Sponge & Airplantman)