Message Boards

Usually when I take down holiday decor I don't put things back the way they were. So I have been looking thru my e-mail BHG photos, etc. and browsing around a bit this morning for ideas, and one thing I have noticed is that all rooms,litteraly, every room, including kitchens and bathrooms, have either vases of flowers, green plants, or both. Now I do have a few pots of greenery, and my paperwhites will be blooming soon, but unless I use fakes, I will have no flowers. do you suppose any of those flowers in all the BHG, etc. rooms are real????

Yep. I read somewhere that magazine photo stylists love to bring in buckets of bouquets to stage the home. It's a great idea.

If you ever seen an episode of Million Dollar Decorators on Bravo, the designers always load up on fresh cut flowers for their final reveas to their clients. Some, like Martyn Lawrence-Bullard and Mary McDonald, arrange the flowers themselves, with the help of assistants.

Fresh flowers! Of course a silk plant or floral arrangement put in a corner (hard to get to and easier to have fake than real) is nice for the color and added nature in the room. But near the eyes and nose... REAL.

Realistically most of us, unlike decorators and magazines, don't have budgets that run to fresh flowers regularly altho plants are not very expensive but do need care. I no longer have indoor plants as don't want to be tied to their care and only occasionally have fresh flowers either gifted or purchased for myself so still occasionally use good faux silk plants/flowers. I know some decorators use faux as well.

We always have fresh flowers in the house. Usually on dining table and somewhere in the great room. When they're plentiful and reasonable, usually have something in bathroom as well. It's just a part of us and who we are.

I have indoor foliage plants: two large potted palms and a giant 5 year-old peace lily, plus a dendrobium orchid and a pineapple plant. Right now, I have three giant blooming amaryllis bulbs for the holidays.

They do take some care, but it comes easy to me. And, as much as I like fresh cut flowers, I am happier with my foliage plants because they make a big statement in my rooms, in their decorative pots.

I do like potted plants as well. Once I get settled here in my house, I want to get an Orchid. IF I can keep it alive, then I will get another... and so on.
I am also going to plant some flowers around the yard so I can go pick some for the table, looking forward to that!

I used to bring in Forsythia branches in the spring and then Lilac when in bloom, I miss those colors.

Yes, the flowers in those shoots are real -- but also if you look closely, you sometimes seem the same flowers in the same vase in different rooms -- I've noticed that! And the plants are real even if they're placed where a plant would never grow! It's for a photo and they don't have to worry about whether the plant will thrive there -- it's only there for a little bit . . . and then it may go somewhere else!

As to fresh flowers and live plants at Linderhof, we usually do have fresh flowers in the house -- the garden ones in summer and florists ones in winter. More flowers in more places in summer when they're free. Paperwhites soon -- an AFTER Christmas tradition -- to bring a bit of spring to a dreary January for the house seems so bare when Christmas is put away (and I adore the fragrance -- but not everyone does!)

Green plants -- I have way too many and some are winter only plants, being put outside when spring comes and coming back inside before it gets too cold while others remain houseplants all year long.

This year the breakfast room plants have grown so much that it's a bit crowded . . . but the plants are "friends" and I couldn't leave them outside to die!

Are they "styled" -- probably not, if they did a photo shoot, they'd move them all around I'm sure for my plants mostly reside in or near windows for they need light to thrive.

But they're friends and some I've had for a long time and some were even my mother's!

I do buy poinsettias at Christmas (real ones) to decorate the house and as mentioned do force paperwhites and hyacinths in late winter.

I feel a house is more homey with flowers and books and plants and wonderful scents wafting through the house.

Martha

When I do not have fresh flowers for a nice SCENT (which is just as important as the visual part):

I bake something, oh my any bread (or zucchini or banana bread with cinnamon)will make the house smell heavenly to arriving guests!

Simmer cinnamon and vanilla (a scent I used in the house when we had an open house) or add orange peels to the mix when I have some.
I dry some for a mix as well to use later

I do not use spray scents (my sinus is happier without)

MR -- on Christmas Eve I made roasted applesauce - it's in the oven and the hosue smells delightful and I'm thinking that Jim must have lit a candle -- NOPE, it is the applesauce!

The smell of food always makes a house more homey IMO.

Martha

I love fresh flowers in the livingroom year -round and if I have an overflow, a few will go into the powder room for guests.

A large ZZ plant and a ficus winter in the livingroom too. I have a dilemma with finding suitable, decorative, pots to hold the enormous ZZ and ficus. I'm always trying to "hide" them behind a bench or chair, because the pots are really too small for the plant and rather ugly.

I love the aroma and ambience of flowers, books and all things homey, as mentioned.

Christmas cactus is another hearty winter plant tho I don't have one currently. Keep in mind that a bowl of seasonal fruit can be replenished, adds color and is delicious. Dried flowers or spheres are found in craft stores for color and texture too. Also, inexpensive bouquets of flowers are readily found in grocery stores. Use framed photos or prints of flowers as accessories that will last and can be switched out from season to season. They can not only be displayed on walls, but on tabletops, bookshelves, dressers, pianos, bathroom shelving, standing easels or countertops, if space permits.

Just curious what those who use fresh flowers so liberally budget for that? Of course I live in the north and fresh cut flowers might be more expensive here but it would cost me $10. for a decent display each time I bought flowers and they would likely only last a week or so. So that would be $520. per year which I'd rather donate to my fav charity. Of course I guess I could float 1/2 dozen carnations in a bowl which would cost less but also not be much of a display.

I have an extensive garden with perennial and annual flowers and during the summer months I could cut large amounts but only do that occasionally as I can see them easily through the windows and don't like dying flowers in the house. Really bad feng shui. Besides I spend a lot of time in my garden so enjoy them living there.

Maybe I just have a different 'take' on this.

For many years I sometimes had 60 - 70 houseplants depending on several factors and thoroughly enjoyed indoor gardening but no longer do as I want to be free to travel.

quote:

Originally posted by Linderhof:
... (plants are) friends and some I've had for a long time and some were even my mother's!

I could have said that also when I had so many houseplants!

I think there are many ways to make a house look homey and plants are merely one way.

Don't have a set budget, but I can go to wholesaler, Costco or grocery store and buy a big bunch for around $10. I used to have a lot of house plants, but since I divide my time between MI and FL I'm down to 2(ancient Christmas cactus and peacelily)in MI that a good friend takes to her home for the time we are gone. I pick liberally from my garden in the spring and summer that cuts down on the cost. But as I said earlier we make having fresh flowers a priority and don't mind the expense.

Most of my flowers come from Wal Mart -- you can get a decent bunch for $5 and most of them last 2 weeks and in the summer, we have garden flowers that I pick liberally. In the winter, I have either a bouquet in the living room or on the breakfast room table.

When we have a dinner party, I will spend more for a pretty arrangement for the dinner table.

I would rather eat hamburger 4 days a week and do it with a bouquet of flowers on the table than to eat steak and be flowerless. But that's me!

I do think flowers add personality to a house as to house plants as to bowls of fruit or nuts.

Martha

Don't forget the ultimate source of color...Mother Nature. She provides evergreens, holly and berries that will not only bring color thru the winter months but often, fragrance as well. If you have these things on your property or near by, utilize them. They're not just for Christmas.