Growing groovy

Whatever happened to the house plant as major decorating feature? Only a couple of decades ago a living room wasn't complete without its own jungle or forty year old bonsai fig in the corner. Light weakly forced its way through a forest of african violets which had colonised kitchen window sills around the world and spider plants brooded sinisterly in macramé slings in every second bathroom. And those pom pom grandma flower arrangements? Are they now as dead as dodos? This week's retro revelation comes from Decorating with Plants and Flowers, Creative Home Library, Meredith Corporation, Des Moines, 1972. Perhaps we don't have to go to the extremes of years past but is there a little room in your house for our leafy friends?

Comments

[kim.]

Great post! I'm feeling right at home with this one. I've always loved plants and have one in every room - except the bathroom, because that's a tad weird. And as for the decor of these rooms, they are all awesome...except for #2. That couch and shag rug are hideous.

[Melanie]

I've been waiting forever for someone to address this! After spending a lot of time searching for books & sites to provide me some direction in displaying my lovely greenery I finally came to the conclusion that the reason there wasn't a lot out there was down to the highly idiosyncratic nature of plant keeping.
There are plants in every room in my house - all of the north facing windows are dedicated to proving them light and warmth to the point that we've chosen not to mount window coverings for some of them as the plants do all of that work.
Plants aren't held in quite as high esteem as the cat is in our house, but they're definitely up there and well-tended and groomed.

[Abbey Goes Design Scouting]

Love that wallpaper in the bathroom!