Keeping it Green

One of the ongoing themes of my work, is a relaxed, quiet informality. The goal is to try and make your decoration look effortless. One of the ways you can create that loose feeling is with plants. I love what they can do for a space, they make it feel fresher, cleaner and somehow take the formality away. In short, almost all of my rooms have plants in them, it's the next best thing to being in a garden.

So here are some of my thoughts about using plants:

• When choosing plants, pay very close attention to where in the room you are going to be using it. If the place you choose is not right for your particular choice, it will always look miserable, and that's not what you want. Luckily though, there are lots of choices, so become friends with the guy at your local plant store, they will steer you right.
• When in doubt about the light you have, take some Polaroids with you to the plant store, that way you can show them where your plant is going and they can help with suggestions.
• There is almost no reason, ever to have a fake plant. Sometimes I will use them in rooms with no windows or something like that, but if you do.....keep them small, the larger they get, the more fake they will look.
• You can make your plants more interesting by being creative with your choice of pot. I did a house recently where I used pots that were very tall, so that I could get the interesting part of the plant up to eye height. Another idea is to use a tall pot with ornamental grasses, this can be really pretty too.
• They may seem overused, but don't overlook the palm. It can be a very hard wearing plant that is both large, but still airy. I find that they create an immediate elegance too that I think is really charming.