A Guide To Choosing And Using Faux Plants In Your Home

A guide to choosing and using faux plants in your home that put the “art” in artificial and get you (almost) all the benefits of the real ones.

Fauxliage – a portmanteau for faux foliage or artificial plants- has come a long way in terms of look, feel and general ability to fool onlookers into thinking they are natural plants. Gone are the days of garish-coloured shiny flowers that always make it to the top lists of classic interior faux pas. Today’s artificial plants are designed after specific species that mimic them so well they’ll lend a pleasing biophilic effect to your space. So, how do we choose and display them? Here are some top tips.

PLASTIC OVER FABRICS

Artificial plants used to be made from wire and fabric – silk, to be exact. Remember those dust-gathering silk flowers on a porcelain vase in your grandparents’ house? Steer clear from those if you’re looking for realistic-looking fauxliage. Plastic fake plants are your best bet to get the most realistic look, as most of them are moulded from actual real-life plants. Choose those modelled after hardy, waxy plants with that natural plasticky quality to begin with, like aloe, snake plants, fiddle-leaf figs and succulents, including cacti.

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