Just popping in on this sunny Saturday with a timely fake-plant update: Target currently has very convincing faux fiddle leaf figs from Threshold. A few quick notes before I get to the tips:
- The price caught my eye ($99 for the larger one and $55 for the smaller one) — update: I just heard they’re on sale
- They look neon under store lighting — in-store fluorescent lights make them appear unnaturally bright
- The pots are undersized and the base looks fake — the transition from stem to “dirt” reads obvious in-store
I bought a couple to experiment with for the beach house (real fiddle leaf figs are high maintenance for a rental), and the result was surprisingly good. With a few adjustments they go from blatantly fake to quite believable.
Here’s how I made them look more natural:
- Re-pot into a larger container. I used inexpensive white Ikea planters I already had. A bigger pot fixes the awkward base proportions, makes the plant look fuller at the bottom, disguises the fake “soil,” and hides the visible stem.
- Bend and arrange stems and leaves. Out of the box they arrive compacted and too uniform. Gently bending and twisting the stems and leaves gives them a looser, more organic silhouette that reads as natural.
- Note how color changes at home. The neon effect from Target’s lighting disappears at home. Placed next to my real fiddle leaf figs, the faux ones match color surprisingly well; like real plants, the faux leaves have brighter green tips that mimic new growth.
To make moving and rotating the pots easier, I like adding small wheeled plant stands under the planters. I used white Ikea pots, which are budget-friendly and clean-looking. For reference, I also included some photos of the space and decor I used them with.
Target offers two sizes. The larger one is great for a room corner or between windows:
The smaller size works well on a mantel, tabletop, or in a petite corner such as a bathroom:
Placed side by side, a real fiddle leaf fig and a faux one can be distinguished up close. Here’s a comparison: the real plant is on the left and the faux on the right; the real one has a more irregular natural shape.
Unless you plan to display a real and a fake one next to each other, these Target faux figs are convincing. Fiddle leaf figs have glossy, waxy leaves, so well-made plastic leaves can mimic that sheen quite effectively — I’ve fooled several guests already and we’ve only had them a short time.
If your room gets plenty of light and you can keep a real fiddle leaf fig alive, by all means go for the living plant. But if your space is darker, you travel often, or you’ve had bad luck keeping plants alive, these faux options are an excellent alternative. They look much better than many other artificial plants I’ve tested over the years.
Price-wise, these are reasonable compared with many large faux plants on the market. For context, comparable options elsewhere can be significantly more expensive, and a real plant of similar size can also cost quite a bit. The convenience of a maintenance-free plant is worth the investment for many people.
I ended up buying five of them — two large and three small — to outfit the beach house and a couple of rooms here that won’t support real fiddle leaf figs. If they’re available in your area, they’re worth checking out. If your local store is sold out, many Targets offer free shipping on orders over a certain amount, and you can always return them to the store if they don’t work for your space.
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