Tips For Plant Styling & Organizing Your Houseplants

Hello friends, my name is Nick and today we're going to take a walk around my apartment and I'm going to share some tips on how to style and organize your houseplants. I've been working with a few hundred plants here in my home for a few years now and hands down I would say caring for them is the easy part. The difficult part is to get them to all look cohesive amongst each other in your space and in the past I have certainly lived in what I would consider to be a plant hoarder's nest, but I feel like over the last year or so I've really been getting comfortable with executing a well-styled plant jungle and I feel like I have a lot of tips to share with you guys. So let's turn the camera around and begin our little stroll. I think a great place to start when styling your indoor jungle is to make sure that you use a couple of large focal piece floor plants. So I'm standing right here at my front door. You can see there's a couple of plants that are already catching the eye. The one that's catching the most attention I would say is probably this Dracaena Fragrance Golden Coast with the yellow edges. And these Dracaenas, these staggered Dracaenas that have, you can see there's three plants in the pot, sometimes there'll be more, sometimes there'll be less and they're at varying heights. These are like the best kept secret for plant styling your home because they are offered in so many varieties from plain green to way more colorful than this and they give you so much foliage in a really contained amount of space. So because these plants are staggered lengths you can see this has the lowest ones foliage right here, the middle's foliage right here, the top plant's foliage is all up here. So it's really just giving us so much plant in just such a small amount of space. And this is just sitting up against this wall right here that you can see that is just coming off of my bedroom area into my living room and it really just completely changed the area. Without it, it feels just completely like it's missing something. So like I said, I really consider these Dracaenas to be one of the best kept secrets for plant styling your home. But the other plants that I have over here, hello, I have this Dracaena, I'm sorry, well yes Dracaena, but it's Sansevieria trifasciata larentii, recently reclassified as a Dracaena, as well as this cast iron plant, also an excellent house plant if you want some just like very, dare I say, plain foliage. It's a great filler plant, I don't think anything else will work as well here just hanging out next to my counter, which my home is kind of a mess right now and there's cat toys all over the floor, so try to ignore them. But you're going to see I have a bunch of large focal piece floor plants here in my home. Hello again, I have the plain green Dracaena right here, the Dracaena janic crag, as well as this natal mahogany, and I would even consider this philodendron gloriosum to be a floor plant at this point. I mean it's on the floor, that's on the floor too, but that's a little small to be considered a floor plant, but you guys get what I'm saying. Some other examples are my Schefflera nova over here, all Scheffleras are great floor plant options, as well as another philodendron that I have back here, this philodendron burlmarks. Having a couple large plants and some nice large planters is a great way to really just set the scene for your indoor jungle, and if I was working with just these large plants and nothing else, I think it would be a great shell of an indoor jungle to get started with. But when you're working a little bit beyond that, I think you really want to make a statement in your home. You can see I have some of these plants up on the wall, so there's a bunch of different ways that you can start decorating your home as if you would be decorating like with art, and I do love utilizing art here in my home, I think some of my art is a little too plant related for the amount of plants that I have in my home, but I can't help it, I just really like plants. But to complement any art that you have in your home, I think using things like this wall basket right here, which has this pothos in it that's going to look even more beautiful as it starts to trail down and just envelop the basket, as well as this mounted fern that I have right here, I'll show you a couple of other mounted plants in a moment, but this is just a really great way, especially this one in the square frame, I think just looks excellent. If I had like a whole gallery wall going on right here, which would be amazing, but I just don't have the art for that, I think this would just fit amongst everything else like a glove, it would look amazing. And I also have my wall trellis, another way to grow some houseplants up on the wall, I have another one in my bedroom that I'll show you in a minute, and I have a whole video completely devoted to growing my houseplants on trellises, so you can check that out as well. But this is just a way that I'm able to have all of these plants that you can see on the top layer of this shelf thingy right here, I'm able to grow a whole bunch of houseplants and let them grow to their fullest potential because they really do need to climb up something in order to get these large beautiful leaves, it would not work this way if they were not attached to a support. And you can use things just like you can see this hill dendrum right here is being held up by these two bamboo stakes, that's fine as well, but as you can see, some of your plants might grow up to your ceiling, so a trellis is an excellent way to give them what they need to grow. And there's a couple more methods for growing plants on your wall, you can see I have these macrame wall hangers, I should make a tutorial soon on how to make these because I made the one on the left and it's very very simple and easy to do, as well as these wall planters, you can see there are so many ways that you can go about getting plants off of your surfaces, which, not that there's an issue with having houseplants on surfaces, but I'm just getting the vibe that many of you guys, if you are like me, you're probably starting to run low on surface space. But when it comes to surface space, there are a couple tips that I have for keeping your houseplants looking as best as possible and not looking like a hoarder's nest, you can see I literally have like a hundred plants just shoved in this corner here, but I try to make everything look very neat, you can see I have just five plants shoved together here in the window, that's kind of the theme that I follow in this window over here, I also have five plants, I have five plants hanging up here in the window, which hanging plants is another incredible way to display your houseplants, I also have another video devoted to that, you can see I have these five plants hanging at staggered lengths here in the window, which doing things staggered when you're working with houseplants I think is the best way to work, even the Dracaena, that's how that staggered length fits into this kind of lesson here, but when you're working with things that are just not so evenly placed, I mean obviously these are very evenly put and it looks like I placed them all there, I feel like when you're working with things that look much more staggered like this, it looks much more unintentional as if you didn't do it, like it's just been there, you didn't even do it, it's just you moved in and it was like this, it just looks much more natural as if it's just of the earth, so you can obviously have a nice balance of intentionally placed items, which I can't even fathom how to make this window sill look unintentional, but a good mix really helps spread things out, in fact another tip I really have for you, hello again you're going to be seeing a lot of me, I have a lot of mirrors in my home, which I guess having mirrors is a great tip too because it really not only adds more light to your home and makes your home feel bigger, but I love how it like reflects the plants here, my philodendron gloriosa looks two times as big because it's being reflected in the mirror and I think that's just a really great secret when it comes to working with some of these more sought after houseplants, if you want it to look like you have even more of it, just get a mirror, when I'm working with my shelf up here, you can see I kind of have everything placed, it looks a little intentional but if we get up close you can see that I have kind of just like individual displays, there's three plants right here, three plants right here, three plants right here, three plants right here, so the tip I'm trying to share here is when you're kind of working with a more confined space like this or if you're just doing like little plant displays, I think working with three plants so just like two smaller planters and then one larger planter in the back or if you're doing like two planters in the back and one smaller planter in the front, I think that's going to give you some really nice little unintentional looking houseplant displays and even more important I think is to use some different types of foliage, you can see right here this ruellia maculiana has quite different foliage from this alternanthus, I believe alternanthi, I forget exactly what it is, but with the silver foliage and the stromanthi with the long like spade-shaped white foliage really looks different and then I have you know this Hoya right here with the waxy foliage and the peperomia with the completely different foliage and the ZZ plant, I guess it looks kind of similar to the Hoya and then all these other things just coming in here, so just having such different foliage whether it's the leaf shape, the leaf size, the leaf texture, the leaf color in many cases, there are so many things to consider that's really going to make your displays look so much more unintentional, I think that's the biggest takeaway of when you're making your houseplant displays, you want them to look like, I mean they're houseplants, you want them to just look like they've been growing there forever, I think this is a great example, this is a plant that's placed here but the way that this plant looks here it just looks like it's been just growing here for however long, I guess not too long because it's not that big, but you're getting the vibe of what I'm saying, I think this is some really important material, but even if we just move over to my kitchen you can see I'm kind of following, we won't get too close because I don't want you to see all the dishes in my sink, but I'm following the whole like little plant display of threes with two larger planters in the back there with a smaller plant in the front and an avocado and two larger plants in the back and one large or smaller one on the front over there, all very different foliage patterns, different colors, different textures, and you can also probably notice that over here in my kitchen I'm sticking with white planters only or cream planters, all of the planters are white even the one that you can't even really see because the plant's enveloping it is white or cream and that's another tip I have to share with you guys, it's really important to follow a color story when you're working with whether it's your whole home or just smaller plant displays, I don't use a lot of white pottery in my home but because my kitchen is white and gray I think it works perfectly and really allows the green to pop in comparison to when I'm working over in this shelf over here and I'm following this more of the earth color story, I feel like I was still getting to know how to like decorate my home when I'm still in my 20s, I'm still learning interior design and all of those wonderful things that really do brighten up your home, but a lot of my furniture was just like plain like black, white, gray furniture before and so a lot of my pottery kind of went along with that because I was bringing it into my home of course to match my furniture but as I was getting more knee deep into my houseplant hobby I started to bring in a lot more terracotta and I feel like that's what really inspired my space here, so you're going to notice that the terracotta is really the color that is just inspiring all of this whole color story that I'm working with in my living room, so kind of following the terracotta you're going to see the colors that I'm working with are mostly yellows, greens, I have some reds here and there, I guess not nearly as many but you are going to see a good amount of red pottery if you look a little deeper into my home, as well as the more earth tones, of course these like I guess you can't really see because the lighting is kind of blowing it out, but unglazed tones that are different than the terracotta and these like you know kind of like gray, I don't know gray brown colors, there's just a lot of of the earth colors that you're going to see here in my home because that is just the vibe that I'm feeling and that carries over to my furniture as well, I feel like this like wood and metal vibe as you can see I'm kind of going with over here as well as with my coffee table is really complementing the aesthetic that I have with my color story that I'm telling with all of my pottery that I have, which pottery is one of the biggest things that can make your home look like a plant hoarder's nest, you can see over on the shelf right here following that color story really helps even though there's like a pop or two like with the wicker and the one white planter that I have there, if these were all like if I had a blue planter there and a white planter there and a purple planter there and a red planter there, I mean unless that's the color story you're following it's going to look really mismatched and jumbled up, it's not going to work here in my space so I would just really consider what kind of pottery you're using because that was I think the biggest misstep that I was following when I was first getting into indoor gardening and that was half because I was just kind of getting whatever planters I could get my hands on but as I become more seasoned in indoor gardening I feel like I just get my hands on pottery from every place that I end up whether it's the hardware store or a plant store that's selling nicer pottery or an art show or a convention I feel like there's always some kind of pottery or even a thrift store I've gotten plenty of pottery from the thrift store I feel like even for example just like this little sorry it's a little messy on the floor here but this little thing that this snake plants in this is a little pot probably like an art project that somebody did in like high school or something but I don't care because it looks nice and it fits my vibe let's also just take a walk over in the bedroom I don't think I have very many more tips to share but I just want to show you all these tips utilized in another room a wall shelf is actually a great way I guess I do have more tips wall shelves are fantastic ways to also display plants and see if all of them oh hello sweet pea oh my god did you hear that oh my goodness she is so sweet oh my gosh I'm sorry I know this has nothing to do with houseplants but I know none of you mind a little muffin intermission especially because she just wants so much attention right now oh my gosh oh she just woke up from my nap okay okay so the wall shelf tootsie okay so the wall shelf you can see I'm also following my color story up here I can also really drive that point home you can imagine against this white wall if I had just a bunch of mismatched colors it would look horrid but utilizing a lot of terracotta and a couple of other tones even like this blue green that's kind of going with the cebu blue pothos and this more beige glaze tone which I feel like another thing I should mention too it's really important to match your plants with the right planter sometimes something like this blue one right here might not look excellent with some other plants in my home but because it's matched with this blue cebu blue pothos it really just has its own vibe and completely fits where you know elsewhere it might not here's another example I totally have to water these houseplants but another example of a wall shelf that's pretty interesting and excellent for displaying houseplants this one I believe was from urban outfitters well this one back here I believe is from pottery barn just a picture ledge and then a couple other examples of ways to you know there's a plant bracket up here which is I think sometimes they're just like shelf brackets even work to hang your house plants but this one I bought for hanging plants particularly but just a cast iron wall bracket that's used for hanging plants to give some more character than just hanging it from the ceiling which to be honest I can't hang things from the ceiling here because there's like concrete right right behind that drywall but just a great way to look a little bit more decorative a larger staghorn fern here these are excellent ferns mounted on the wall are going to give you such an incredible vibe and I mentioned before I had some more mounted plants so here are just some plain mounted epiphytic houseplants I have some videos on how to make these if you're curious but have them also at staggered lengths here or staggered not lengths but staggered positions here on the wall to really make it look a little bit more unintentional as well as another trellis that I have right here and you can see I think this is really interesting too I think this is like an another best kept secret for plant styling making little things for your air plants to sit on so this is just a piece of cork bark that I just found this stick and I know I don't think I have a tutorial about this on YouTube yet but I just found this stick I glued it onto the cork bark here I got some pieces of moss and glued it on and I just basically made a spot for my little air plant my Tillandsia tectorum to sit here and I have one more that's actually pretty interesting out in the living room pardon me as I float on over there but I have this one which I think is a little bit more artsy so it's once again just a piece of cork bark as the base and I found a stick and I glued it onto the cork bark and I just stick these air plants inside and it's supposed to basically look like I rip this off the tree and I'm growing it in my home obviously you shouldn't do that because you shouldn't mess with nature like that but just gluing the little pieces of moss on are just my attempt of making it look a little more unintentional because as I've been saying this whole time getting your plant stuff to look unintentional is just the goal because it as I was saying makes it look like I just pull it off the tree and that's what I want with all of my house plants too I want them to look like they've just been I dug them out of the ground and they're just growing to their fullest potential here in my home but that's all the tips that I have to share with you all today let's take a seat I know this is a little bit more all over the place but I wanted to be a little more hands-on with this video and show you everything up close with the hopes that you get a little bit more ideas and inspiration and understanding so thank you so much for joining me if you don't already follow me on instagram at phillyfolia subscribe to my channel you can subscribe to my patreon for even more house plant content and I will see you guys in my next video have a great time