Winter weather can keep us from enjoying outdoor activities and interacting with nature and plants. During the cold months, stay in touch with nature by including live plants as part of your inside room décor.

By Steffie Littlefield

(This article first appeared in The Gateway Gardener January/February 2015 issue.)

Winter weather can keep us from enjoying outdoor activities and interacting with nature and plants. During the cold months, stay in touch with nature by including live plants as part of your inside room décor. Not only will tropical plants enhance your home or office space, but they will make the air cleaner, add humidity to the atmosphere and make the inhabitants calmer and lighten their mood. Choose houseplants plants for their clean-air benefits and you will also find they add beauty to your home.

There are lots of houseplants with different foliage colors and textures to choose and combine to create a container that is a decorative addition to a coffee table, sideboard or a bright corner. Try combining trailing English ivy with white-blooming peace lily and gold and green-striped Snake plants. The red-leaved rubber plant combined with neon pothos and a frilly Boston fern makes a charming container garden. For something larger start with a weeping ficus, under-plant with the old favorite, variegated spider plant, and the new pink-spotted Chinese evergreens, ‘Lady Valentine’ or ‘Pride of Sumatra’. All these plants are on the best Clean-Air Plants and easiest houseplants to grow. Other plants to look for are bamboo palms and dracaenas with red edges or tricolor.

Some rooms or occasions call for more than just lovely foliage plants. A new look for indoor plants is to create an arrangement with more creativity and decorative elements. Natural twigs, pods, seed heads, bamboo, palm leaves and cones can be added to tropical plants to create an artfully arrangement for the sophisticated interior space. Whether your home is contemporary, traditional or more rustic, these natural stems and picks make easy decorative accents. Added to a cluster of lush green foliage plants, twisted stems give the container height to fill a blank wall without crowding the living space. Rose-like flowers made from palm leaves, large lotus pods and root balls will give your foliage plants an eye-catching flowery appeal. Plumes of milo and millet and twisted grasses bring a whole new dimension to potted plants. These natural accents give potted houseplants an updated styling that is trending with the current emphasis on natural materials and healthy living. Visit your local independent garden center and get advise on the best houseplants for your home and experiment with fun combinations and artistic designs.

Steffie Littlefield is a horticulturist and garden designer at Garden Heights Nursery.