Nowadays, both real and replica plants play a role in styling up homes and office spaces. These plants can uplift your interior design, entertain guests and breathe new life into your living or working space, depending on how you use them and where you place them. If you want to complement your interior design with plants, you may use live plants or fake plants or combine them. It all depends on your taste and style. To narrow down your design options, this Charles Howell Interior Design guide explores the pros and cons of indoor plants. Read along to determine which plant is the best choice for you and your room.

Artificial plants have several obvious benefits. They are durable, they need little maintenance, and they can be placed even in the darkest corner of your home or office. What’s more, faux plants can go in any dark, light, cold or hot room and still look good. The best part is fake plants are now quality, lifelike products. In fact, you have to touch them to tell if they are natural or not.

So, if synthetic plants require little care, look realistic and can be put anywhere, is there any reason to choose a live plant?

For starters, real plants have health benefits. Studies show that they can make you feel better when you’re stressed and ill. When you are around them, you can be more creative and productive, relax more and stay longer.

Looking at artificial plants can boost your mood too. However, these plants cannot clean out air. Indoor air may contain toxins from machinery, paints and soft furnishings. What’s more, HVAC systems dry air and send it below the recommended levels of humidity for a sustainable and healthy environment. This affects our health and comfort at home and in the office. But well-chosen, well-placed natural plants can improve the room’s humidity levels and remove toxins in the air. In addition, real plants have a scent that artificial ones don’t and they bring the freshness of nature into your room.

Now, if live plants are pretty, possess health benefits and have a great odour; does it mean they are the best indoor plants for your space?

Primarily, real plants die quickly and are costly to replace. Often, they wither due to little sunlight, insufficient water and limited air. To boost their survival, you have to water them regularly and place them in a room with adequate light. Besides that, you have to do regular maintenance, especially weeding and trimming to ensure proper growth. As real plants are not resistant to pests and insects, applying pesticides and insecticides is crucial in sustaining the plant’s health.

These maintenance tasks can be hectic, particularly if you are very busy. And if you go on a vacation, you may need to look for someone to take care of your plants. This is not the same with artificial plants, which only require dusting to remove collected dust. Lastly, plastic and silk plants are cheaper than natural ones. For one, they are long-lasting, and secondly, they need minimal care from your part.

Now you know what’s best for your space!