Easy Flower Pot Arrangement Ideas: Expert Advice on Decorating Living Rooms with Planters

It’s every designer’s badly-kept secret that planters can add appeal and character to any room like few other decorative elements. The trick, of course, is to know what you are doing, or to use planters in a smart, conscious way that will most benefit your room’s décor.

But rather than try to come up with all the answers on your own, why not simply follow expert advice on the matter? Our planter supplier, the Jay Scotts Collection, has run a survey among professional designers and kindly shared some of the results with us – and with you!

The designers were asked to give a few practical tips to anyone planning to decorate their living room with modern planters, and they certainly delivered some great and easy flower pot arrangement ideas. Read on and find out how to put the right pots in the right places to make your living room stand out with impeccable style.

Opening remarks

For starters, have a look at these words of wisdom by Allyson Wiggins from Portico Planters! We feel this hits the nail right on the head on all counts here.

Plants should make a meaningful contributionto a home’s design. Too often we see planters clustered in front of windows where they block the view and hoard the natural light.

As a first step, choose specific locationsfor the planters. This will influence other decisions such as size, shape, style and plant materials.

Choose appropriately sized planters. An oversized planter will make a tight space feel cramped.

Corner planters are usually round, somewhat vertical, and neutral in color to blend in with the rest of the room. Tabletop plants are a cost-effective alternative to flower arrangements, but size and scale are important. An accent table needs a small planter, while a console table can accommodate a planter with more mass. Planters over a fireplace are often positioned symmetrically, but asymmetry works on mantles, too.

Curate a thoughtful collection of plantersthat works with the overall aesthetic of the room and home. Keep it simple. Too much variation will feel confusing and look junky. Modern designs should be clean and simple.

Pay attention to environmental conditions when choosing plant material. Sunlight is an important factor, but also consider drafty spots, foot traffic and pets.

Allyson Wiggins, Portico Planters
easy flower pot arrangement ideas

Space and scale considerations

Allyson’s remarks offer a great overview of the essential rules to be mindful of when decorating your home with pots and potted plants, but let’s look at things in more detail now. How do you best handle the space at your disposal, and how do scale considerations come into play here? Let’s give it over to our experts:

Don’t over fill the space. Place fewer, potentially larger planters in key places that will make an impact. It’s a lot to take care of an indoor jungle, don’t over complicate your life if you don’t enjoy caring for that many plants. Pick a few places; behind a chair, hanging in a corner, an empty space on the floor next to a dresser, and place appropriately sized plants in these spaces. Choose clean-lined planters in monotone colors to keep with the modern feel of your space.

Anne Griffin, Mangold Horticulture Designer & Horticulturist

Play with scale, use groupings to create warmth and single planters for drama. If space is an issue but you’d still like the drama of height, utilize taller planters to bring the plant up and save on the overall footprint.

Janelle Meyer, Texas Tropical Plants
easy flower pot arrangement ideas

Scale is the most important. If you have a low ceiling, you don’t want a super tall container. Same goes with higher ceilings. Shape should fit the interiors whether modern, transitional or traditional.

Kenneth Crawford, Kenneth Crawford Interiors

It’s important to add greenery to a living space. Depending on your ceiling height, find appropriate scale planters, preferably an upright well-groomed plant to create a positive energy. Nothing crawling around!

Puay Soh, an independent contractor

Don’t be afraid to elevate the planters, stagger them or use different shapes in a grouping. Get creative and consider color.

Adriana Salinas, Newcomb Landscaping Service

The art of focal points

Highlighting the most important features of a room is a great method of attracting attention and making the entire design flow, and so a huge part of any design project is knowing which pieces to highlight as well as how to highlight them. Using fiberglass containers as a focal point is something that is easy to do, and it will add flair and elegance to any area:

Use the planters as a design element within the room, either through color coordination, or planter style. A few large visually striking plantsare better than a dozen small ones.

Daniel Gerdes, Christy Webber Landscapes
easy flower pot arrangement ideas

Another easy way to direct the attention of any visitor is through conscious use of planter color. For best and most daring results, mix the two – attention-grabbing pots and striking colors:

In modern décor, colors pop. Usually modern is fairly minimalistic and your planters can be an opportunity to really liven up the room. If I was going mid-century modern, I may choose a bold color for the planter itself. If we are sticking to true modern, I’d look at a more neutral planter (maybe even a sexy black) and use my foliage to balance the room. Vertical plants like mother-in-law tongue are very low maintenance and work well in modern spaces.

Claire Goldman, R&R Landscaping

Regard for the residents

The place is called “a living room” for a reason, so in your design choices never forget the needs and preferences of the people (and pets) who are going to live in it:

Be mindful of whether or not the space will be occupied by adults, children, or pets. This will dictate the appropriate sizes and what kinds of materials to use for planters such as a ceramic versus a fiberglass or polyurethane which would fare better around kids.

Nickole Krupa, The Lab – Creative Design Studio

I think it’s important to consider your style and what vibe you have in your home when selecting planters.

Jennifer B. Perez, Growing Roots

Drainage holes and tidiness

You must have heard that proper drainage equals healthy plants, but what if you just don’t like the idea of unsightly leaks around the bottom of your planter – possibly also damaging your floor or the furniture around it? Here is some practical advice on how to address these issues:

I can’t count how many times I’ve been called in to do a plant care consultation for a struggling plant to find that the plant has been potted in a planter with no drainage hole! Overwatering is the number one killer of plants,which can be avoided with proper drainage. A drainage hole provides and escape for any excess water the plant isn’t using. Without it water pools at the bottom of the pot, suffocating the roots, leading to root rot that can kill your plant. I suggest keeping the plant in a growers/nursery pot and simply placing into the decorative pot.

Weslie Pierre, Wesleaf Designs and Decor
easy flower pot arrangement ideas

Try to find pots that don’t have drainage holes and place the plant in its nursery pot, directly into the planter. This reduces the need for saucers giving it a tidier appearance that is also safer for your floors.

Anne Griffin, Mangold Horticulture Designer & Horticulturist

Make sure your indoor planters are waterproof so you have no issues of damaging surfaces. If they are not waterproof, there are always ways you can do that unless you want to use a saucer or something similar instead.

Jennifer B. Perez, Growing Roots

Getting real

According to Daniel Keeley from DK Design, it’s also useful to be honest with yourself about how many plants you can really afford to look after:

Be realistic about how many container plantings you can maintain or are willing to pay to be maintained.

Daniel Keeley, DK Design
easy flower pot arrangement ideas

Stylish ways to arrange modern pots

We do hope all the above ultra-practical advice from our expert designers will help you greatly in your own adventures with interior design! However, if you still feel like you need a few ready-made formulas to get you started on the right footing, then consider committing to one of these themes and give your living room a consistent look.

A tropical paradise

Turning a drab room into a tropical paradise is the perfect solution if you want space to relax and destress without having to travel. Paint at least one wall in lovely bright blues and invite some fresh air into your space, but be sure you turn the dream into reality by also including tropical plants. Sure, such plants may not do well outside in your location, but with the help of a modern planter, you can keep healthy palms, ferns, colorful flowers and other tropical plants healthy indoors with a little bit of planning. These plants will fill the room with the familiar earthy scent that comes along with a tropical vacation, as well as offering cleaner air to breathe and a quiet space to contemplate nature inside your space.

easy flower pot arrangement ideas

The farmhouse look

For many offices, schools and even apartments, the idea of a sprawling outdoor garden is out of the question. Fortunately, with modern containers, you can plant a garden of just about any size indoors! For instance, large basin pots are perfect for planting dwarf trees with an assortment of low growing flowers around the base. You can also group tabletop planters of various sizes to build a privacy wall. Plus, tall and narrow flower pots are great dividers for rooms that help maximize your walking space without making the room feel stuffy. When you choose classic colors and designs, you can really build a look that would benefit a modern farmhouse with ease.

easy flower pot arrangement ideas

Wild West

For a low-maintenance but colorful punch in your indoor space, consider pots for succulents. These lovely plants come in many more varieties than we ever imagined, and many of them are quite colorful not to mention their unique shapes and flowers. You don’t have to go overboard with enormous plants to make a bold splash with modern flower pots. Instead, add a modern planter with an interesting profile, fill it with loose sandy soil to fit the needs of your succulents, and then plant away. Succulents look great in a room that’s been designed with desert colors and décor.

easy flower pot arrangement ideas

Eccentric displays

Even if your interior design does not fall into one of these common themes, you can still use modern flower pots to tie together the colors you love. Modern fiberglass containers come in a huge range of colors and finishes so they can be matched to your needs. In addition, you can order them in a variety of sizes so that you have a good mix of floor planters as well as tabletop planters throughout the space. This will create a unified appearance that grabs the eye, especially when your containers are bursting with color from the inside.

Our fiberglass planters

No matter what kind of look you hope to create in your home project, modern flower pots can play an important role in adding eye-catching color and detail to any room. Modern planters are available in many sizes and colors so you can match each planter to its intended home, and personalize it with the plants you choose to put inside. They can be as complex or as simple as they need to be to get the effect you’re after! Learn more and check out our stunning fiberglass planters at Planters Et Cetera today.

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