Home décor: It's ok to fake it...

Sometimes, just sometimes, it’s ok to fake it. Tans, eyelashes and greenery all get my fake seal of approval. Whilst the first two are down to vanity, the last is down to my lack of green fingers. I remember buying my first succulent after hearing they “thrive on neglect”. It was dead after a month. My neglect is clearly off the scale.

The current botanical trend is huge and quite rightly so. It really freshens up your home and adds a splash of colour whilst somehow remaining neutral. Greenery isn’t fussy, overbearing or twee. It’s clean. So how can we bring the great outdoors into our home without having wilting leaves spoiling the look?

Can you spot the fake?

The best thing to do is have a mix of fake and real plants. In easy to reach, light places that I see all the time I have a few real plants (and created an alert on my phone to water them every Wednesday – I’m six months in and they’re still going strong!). I wanted the air purifying health benefits that real plants provide (that’s school level science) and I also think it’s hard to find decent large fake plants that don’t require you to re-mortgage the house. My favourite is the Livistona Rotundifolia (Squires, £17.99) which looks great as a floor standing plant in the Ikea Fladis Basket (£13).

Livistona Rotundifolia (Squires, £17.99) in Fladis Basket (Ikea, £13)

In darker spots and on high shelves I’ve gone fake. One World in Haslemere has recently started stocking a fake trailing ivy that is the best I’ve found at a reasonable price (£14). It looks great on the top shelf of my dresser.

Fake trailing ivy (One World, £14)

The best value fake plants I’ve found are from Ikea (starting at £3) and they are sold online so you don't have to make the £200+ trip. The fake oregano is brilliant, as is the rosemary (Fejka £6). I have them dotted around my house, in the windowless little loo (home to the previous dead succulents) and the guest bedroom. I also bought the Ikea succulents for my bedside table (Fejka £3) and I honestly couldn’t tell them apart from the real thing.

To throw in some more real greenery that gets eaten before it has the chance to die, I buy several pots of herbs (rosemary, thyme, mint, basil and Greek basil – stay away from parsley and coriander as the quickly wilt) in my weekly food shop and display them in a generous white planter on the kitchen island. This is affordable (Tesco, £1.25), has dual purpose and smells great.

Herb pots (Tesco, £1.25) & planter (The White Company, £35)

So, you don’t have to be green fingered to get the botanical look. It’s relatively inexpensive to achieve and will instantly freshen up your home for spring.