Spring has finally arrived with flowers and sprigs of green rising from the earth! Recently I was looking around at all the different vintage and antique vessels at our shop and thought  they’d be charming potted up with succulents into adorable little groupings. It had me thinking….how is it that house plants have become trendy again?

All of a sudden everybody wants terariums and succulents, macramé hanging baskets and curly leafed fig trees. Just yesterday I was looking at the antique Chinese noodle cupboard in my living room ( atop which I’m currently storing two lampshades ) and thought “I should put some ferns on that”. My partner’s out of town and I find myself wanting to play house and freshen up this place but I never really been one for houseplants. So I had a chuckle with myself. I thought ‘you’re being influenced by trends’! 

Of course were all influenced by trends but it’s one thing to be a slave to them and another to be aware to the nuances of what is timely and what is now. The interesting thing about an eclectic aesthetic is it’s about mixing new and old in a way that feels timely without being trendy. It takes things that are old and looks at them in a new way,combines them in a new way so they become something altogether different. It’s what makes antiques still feel fresh.

We can carry things from the past, antique treasures and nostalgic mementos from our our lives, place them in different homes and spaces as time goes on, yet not make them feel old, dated by the way we present them and give them new life. The problem I’ve always had with houseplants is they tend to get a little neglected and dusty, the leaves start to brown, and they never really look like how they first arrived unless you truly treat that growing treasure with great loving care like a pet. (Orchids are one plant other than cactus or succulents that I enjoy having at home. While they need a little tending, they stand like a sculpture overflowing with blooms for months on end ) One of the great things about succulents is they don’t need a lot of attention and they stay as they are.  As I started potting along with soil and gravel, using simple vintage vessels like pedestal bowls and pudding bowls with single plants, I perused the shop and found other antique containers that I thought could be even more interesting filled with plants. A fresh way to bring life to antique treasures and make them feel new again.

Blue Willow is one of the most popular, longest enduring china patterns every created. It is  a traditional classic. Yet see how different it looks when used to house this Echeveria plant. I actually even salvaged the rim of a Blue Willow bowl to create a unique border for another planting. Instead of discarding it, I looked at in an imaginative way and was able to reinvent it. 

Very soon, terrariums and hanging baskets and such will start to feel common again, done, predictable, trendy again the way hanging macrame baskets did years ago when every bedroom had one. So the trick to being inspired by trends, is to be….inspired! Add a twist. Bring your own personality to it. Be original. Do it in your own way. That way it will be authentic and enduring. A breath of fresh air instead of a fad that will fade out.