Should You Have Real Or Fake Plants In Your Home?

Not everyone has a green thumb, but many realize how useful plants are to sprucing up the decor of their apartment or house. The Spruce covers a handful of ways that you can use plants to accentuate your decor. However, the question always arises whether you should opt for real plants or fake plants. For some homeowners, real plants are unbeatable because they’re living beings. For others, faux plants are more practical. In this article, we’ll look at which type of plant suits which kind of owner.

The Look Is Important

One of the reasons that many homeowners avoid faux plants is because they tend to look fake. If you just mean to use them as window dressing, they don’t have to be perfect. However, if they’re going to be used to add to the feel of a room, realism is critical. Luckily, the advances in manufacturing technology have made faux greenery look very close to the real thing over the last decade. If you can manage to get a fake plant that looks just as good as the real thing, you’d have solved that problem. The issue of whether it fits your lifestyle and your decor remains unanswered, unfortunately.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Before deciding to buy a real or plastic plant, you should be aware of the differences and needs of both. You want a plant that’ll accentuate your creative cabinets and faux finishes, but it’s also manageable for your lifestyle. It would help if you considered the following:

·         Are you home often? Some plants need watering regularly, or else they die of thirst. If you travel a lot and have living plants, you’ll have to get someone to stop in to water your plants. Alternatively, fake plants will ensure they remain green without any maintenance.

·         Are your pets curious? Tails mentions a handful of plants that can be poisonous to dogs. If you have curious pets, then it’s in your best interest to have plants they won’t nibble on. You can opt to place your plants out of their reach or opt for the fake options instead.

·         How much maintenance do you want to put in? Some homeowners prefer to spend a lot of time watching their plants grow and tending to them. For such plant parents, having a living organism to tend makes them feel more involved. For the rest of us who aren’t much good at keeping plants alive, a plastic facsimile may be a better choice instead of trying (and potentially failing) to raise a plant.

What Works for You?

Going through these questions should let you know what type of homeowner you are. If you’re the type who enjoys watching their plants grow and tending to them lovingly, you will get more value from a real plant. If you’re a frequent traveler or aren’t home a lot, then a plastic plant might be a better consideration. Once the plant fits your decor, whether it’s real or fake is simply a matter for academic concern.