Leafy Green

They say design is all about trends ... What's in? What's out? What was the big fad last year? And what will be the year's coming trend? Well I've been loving green as a colour for many many years now. It's perfect for walls, furniture, decorative pieces and pretty much everything else.

If you're like me and follow a plethora of interior design pages on Instagram and constantly pin beautiful images on your Pinterest that have green splashed in a variety of different ways in order to add colour and effect to any room, then you'll understand where I'm coming from. I'm a lover of white. But I love white as a starting point with bold and beautiful colours, be it a feature piece or a vibrant indoor plant or terrarium to make that personality statement.

You don't have to have a lot of space that you're looking to fill. You can add a touch of colour to any room, corner, bench top, etc.

Anywhere there's some natural light most plants will grow with some love and attention. Or you could always have a cactus garden if you're not a fan of remembering to water daily/weekly.

Greens also a reassuring colour so it's not difficult to understand why it's such a natural colour to fill our homes/personal spaces. Greenery gives a soothing feel to any room and there's also health benefits.

When you embellish interior spaces with houseplants, you’re not just adding greenery. These living organisms interact with your body, mind and home in ways that enhance the quality of life. https://www.bayeradvanced.com/articles/5-benefits-of-houseplants

We've recently added a number of indoor plants around the house (peace lilies, zamioculcas, peperomias, philodendrons, ficus', succulents, cacti, spider plants and a number of others). See a list of good indoor house plants here: http://www.houseplantsexpert.com/a-z-list-of-house-plants.html

It's made a huge differences to not only the air quality in a house with two adults, two kids and two dogs ... but it also makes a noticeable difference to state of mind. My partner always comments of how much nicer it feels changing our 6week old in the nursery when she's surrounded by beautiful natural plants/fragrances. Definitely beats the natural smells that radiate from Harper-Lee.

So whether it's a new or existing space that you're looking for some inspiration on how to update/breathe some life into - look nofurther than adding an age old design partner - the humble indoor plant/green colour pallet.

And the beauty with greenery is it doesn't have to be expensive. Many types of native NZ plants can be planted/trained to grow indoors with the right temperature/placement/watering. So my advice for the start of 2017 - go green.