What Is Plantscaping?
As large segments of the American workforce continue returning to the office, corporate plantscaping has become an emerging trend. If you aren’t familiar with interior plantscaping, we’ll explore how interior plant design can elevate health, morale, and productivity.
By adding interior planting design elements throughout your office space, you’ll create a more welcoming and sophisticated first impression for visitors and employees alike.
How to Add a Plantscape To Your Office
Plantscaping is another way to describe an interior planting design. Any office can benefit from this solution, which offers aesthetic and environmental advantages. For the best office plantscaping solution, we recommend using a variety of plant species.
You can also include unique structures such as living walls. These walls often have practical benefits and can visually divide up your office space. Tall plants can make a space appear even larger, whereas groups of plants go well where people congregate. You’ll also find that you notice acoustic and thermal benefits after adding plants.
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How Indoor Plantscaping Improves Air Quality
When working in a busy city, one of the biggest issues humanity faces is poor air quality. Research suggests that the air you breathe daily at work immediately impacts your cognitive function. However, the addition of indoor plantscapes can help you to play your part in improving air quality in your workspace.
Even buildings with excellent air filtration systems have areas to improve upon, where indoor plantscaping comes into play. Research also suggests that houseplants remove a range of toxins from buildings, starting within just 24 hours of their installation.
When considering plants to improve air quality, the spider plant is one of the top options for cleansing the air. Interior planting design solutions often incorporate this plant, which is easy to add to a desk or windowsill. The plant’s moisture can boost a room’s humidity while also filtering out TCE, benzene, and other toxins.
Aloe vera and Boston fern are other options to consider, and their smaller size makes them perfect for the office plantscape. The more plants you can add to a space, the more you’ll notice the advantages of interior plantscaping.
The 5 Key Elements of Interior Plantscaping
When it comes to interior plant design, certain factors should be kept in mind. Interior planting design isn’t the same as updating your outdoor garden, so you’ll need to consider this when selecting the plants for your office space. The following are a few of the most important areas to consider when adding interior plantscaping to any space:
1) Size and Shape
Before selecting plants to add to your office, measure the size of your room. You don’t want to select a plant that looks excessively big in the space, as this can feel overwhelming. On the other hand, a small plant such as a potted cactus can feel far too small. Match your plant selection to the height of the ceiling and the size of the window.
If you are lucky enough to benefit from high ceilings in your office, living walls are an exciting feature to add. You’ll need enough space for the wall to safely fit in without making the room look too dark and gloomy.
For example, the plants you choose should reach no further than halfway from the floor to the ceiling. For window plants, you should avoid obscuring any more than one-third of the window pane.
2) Number and Location
One approach to plantscaping is assembling a group of plants that visually focus on the room and a dramatic effect. This trend is popular where either the space itself is large or where there’s an oddly-shaped space that is otherwise underutilized. For example, this is the appeal of a living wall – where there is a wall or surface that can become a real showpiece.
“Grouping” and living walls are a great option when you have a generous budget for your plantscaping. A more common approach is to strategically place individual plants to add life and interest to the space. Sometimes, adding only one or two plants to a space is enough to “fill out” the room’s décor.
In this method, you’ll want to place individual plants near focal areas, such as at the end of a hallway, a reception desk, or in any other location where they’ll be consistently visible.
3) Color
Color has a huge impact on our mood. With the right plants and planters in your interior plant design, you can create an oasis of calm in even the most hectic of workplaces. However, you don’t want to mix and match too many different colored planters in your office.
You’ll find that this will create a disorganized and unprofessional aesthetic, which isn’t the first impression you want to make. Opt for plants and planters that complement the color scheme of your office and the furniture you currently have in place.
Depending on your company’s brand colors and your office’s floor plan, you may want to explore either matching or complementary colors. These color combinations can also include accents that highlight the vibrant, diverse nature of your plantscaping.
4) Repetition
One common element we see within interior planting design and living walls is repetition. To create a simple and minimalist look, opt for a row of identical plants on the windowsill of the office.
Not everyone in your office will have the same taste for interior plant design. Opt for more neutral design solutions to create a space where everyone will feel comfortable working each day.
When choosing plants for the office, focus on those that won’t be too distracting for visitors or employees. You don’t want staff to spend their whole day staring at your ornate new plants when they could be focusing on more important tasks.
5) Expertise
We understand that you might not have the time and energy to undertake an office plantscaping project. For that reason, you may want to consider employing a professional for this task.
Many gardeners and interior design professionals offer interior plantscaping services. Look for a specialist in this area who will understand the size and shape of the plants you need.
Specialists will also know the kinds of plants that will thrive in your particular lighting and environment. This expertise will help you avoid the cluttered look that often makes interior plantscaping look unprofessional and messy in offices.
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Key Takeaways
When undertaking an office plantscaping project, we encourage you to either take your time to plan out the work yourself or to consult with a professional. Plantscaping isn’t a task you want to rush, as you’ll want to ensure you have time to acquire premium plants and planters for your new interior plant design.
Living walls are our favorite office solutions because they will impress anyone who sets foot in the building. With the benefits to the air quality in your office, you’ll find that staff members will be happy to spend more time in the space. They’ll notice improved concentration, productivity, and efficiency in the office thanks to the addition of a great plantscape design.
Boston’s Premier Plantscaping Specialists
Foliaire is a full-service interior and exterior greenscape design-build firm in Boston’s historic South End. For the last 40 years, we’ve provided the highest quality plant maintenance services for clients across the Boston Metro area. We customize and plan all of our installations to fit your unique space and tastes. That’s how we’ve built a reputation of unparalleled style and elegance for both corporate and residential community projects. In addition, we’ve received several environmental design awards and have appeared in several publications, including Architectural Digest, House and Garden, Horticulture, and Interiorscape.
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