The Easiest House Plants & The Best Faux Plants I have Found

This post is going to be full of photos, because I think they do most of the work in making a case for a house full of greenery. But like, straightforward greenery. That is not stressful and that does not remind you of that emoji of dollar signs with wings. Because when things die repeatedly, it can GET YOU DOWN. Ask me how I know. The point is that I TRULY AND DEEPLY BELIEVE that nearly every single room in a home can benefit from greenery – it adds a splash of life and a vivid and vibrant texture.

So if you’ve got some low light spots that simply do not allow anything real to live, and you are hunting for a good convincing fake that will never die, well, I have gotcha covered. And if you are looking for real plants you literally would have to try hard to kill… trust me, I am well versed at killing plants, so I am only going to list the truly hardy stuff.

Exhibit A is this herb that will never die on my desk. That is right, it is fake. And I picked up it at Michaels with a 50% off coupon (total spent: $7.50). I enjoyed the soft texture and the compact little feathery branches it has – and here is one of my pointers. I saw it in person. So I could poke it and prod it and judge if the color was too blue-green or too yellow or whatever. And it convinced me. It is simply as delicate as a real asparagus fern or an herb from the garden. But it is from Michael’s and I paid for it once and it’ll last forevermore.

Also, never buy a real asparagus fern. They die spectacular guilt-inducing deaths. At least for me. On the other hand, I have some other real plants that are SURVIVORS. Put them in matching outfits and call them Destiny’s Child. They are all over five years old. Some might even be a full decade old! And here is the curveball: I fully neglect them. They are called pothos and they simply need a little water and seem fully unpicky about sunlight amount, which tends to be key for me.

You can even clip off the long droopy legs (?!?!?!) – clearly I am not one of those green thumbs who knows all the plant terms – and then you can put them in water TO MAKE MORE FREE PLANTS (more on that here). So they are high on the hardy and hard-to-kill list for me if you want some real greenery. And real house plants have all sorts of benefits like cleaning the air, and making humans feel happier (that is legit backed by science, which is fairly remarkable for something that you can buy for under $5).

Sidenote: We have a devoted post all about the paint color in those previous two room photos if you want to see more photos of Edgecomb Gray in our house & read why we enjoy it so much.

Jumping back over to the dark side (aka: fake plants), I fancy myself a faux plant diva, in that I DO NOT PLAY AROUND. If something looks fake, I keep it moving. I have sent back faux plants I have picked up online for not being good sufficient. And if someone messages me and says “hey how is the Ikea faux fiddle leaf fig?” I will quite honestly say “I have seen it in person, and I do not enjoy it – from far away it looks ok, but I have seen other fake figs up close that look more full and real for around the same price or even less.”

For example, I have enjoyed these $39 faux fiddle leaf figs from Target (seen above and below), although I am adamant that they need to be feathered out a bit. Simply gently pull their branches apart so they are less smushed vertically. Real fiddle leaf figs have leaves that are nearly parallel to the ground, so doing that helps with the realism. And adding a bigger planter or basket for them to sit in makes them look a lot more convincing and proportionate.

We have these faux figs at the beach house and the duplex, which are vacant for many weeks at a time (so real plants are not truly an option except perhaps for some succulents that I might add) and I also have one in our living room above. I kept trying to get real figs to live in that corner of our living room and it is simply too dark. I likely killed three before I faced the music that it was “faux or nothing” in that spot.

It is also truly pleasant to have one up in the bedroom between the windows since the sun shines further into the room, but does not truly hit that spot on the floor much, so real plants kept getting stick-like after a while there. They were trying to grow towards the light so they’d end up looking truly long and floppy as they in short dove in slow motion towards the window.

But let us bounce back to real – and Especially Straightforward – greenery for a second. These branches have been in two bouquets I have received in the last few years – and they are like mutant plants from Planet Neverdie. From a decent amount of googling I believe that they are called Ruscus (specifically Isreili Ruscus I think) and THEY LAST FOR MONTHS! If I am wrong, someone who is a plant expert DM me the name because we all need to know what these are.

Saying they last for months sounds like I am exaggerating and you might think, ok perhaps one month… but I have had them last for OVER THREE MONTHS! I do not do a thing except put them in water and watch all the other flowers and cuttings around them die as they live on for literally a full season or more. I likely change the water once a month if I remember.

These are the same thing in the photo below. Simply truly strong greenery that is real long-lasting, but TRULY LOW MAINTENANCE.

Oh and see that big faux fiddle leaf fig in the background of the photo above? That is from Target a while back when they made these tall ones as part of the Opalhouse collection. I hope they bring them back because they are GOOD. Like my-mom-has-watered-them good. If you are looking for a big fiddle leaf fig like that one, I have seen this one in person too, and it is strong.

Sidenote: I get asked all the time if you put something into a larger pot, how should you deal with the extra space between the small original pot and the larger planter or basket you use. I have three ways I deal with it:

• 1) I leave it – real potted plants might be placed in a larger basket and there is no shame in that game, it looks fine
• 2) I add dried moss from a garden center – you can get a whole bag of it for low-cost and simply shove it in there (see my picture below)
• 3) You could also add something smooth and fairly like white or black river rocks in there – I have seen this look strong

You might be wondering, but where can she keep a real fiddle leaf fig alive? And the answer, after living in our house nearly six years, is: One. Freasking. Corner.

Yup, simply one spot, in the corner of the office, gets sufficient light to keep a real one glad. So you can see it here in the background of this picture. I find the fiddle leaf fig to be a Especially Straightforward PLANT to keep alive. BUT YOU NEED Sufficient LIGHT. So like, 99% of my house = not sufficient light. So it would die in literally every other corner. I have killed MANY.

This corner though, equals sufficient light, so this thing is older than my four year old. All I do is fully ignore it, except for dumping one big glass of water into its soil every 9-10 days or so. When the leaves look droopy I dump the water on it and it perks right up. That is it. But again: especially sunny is the key to the equation. Otherwise, do not mess with real fiddle leaf figs.

I also TRULY enjoy real eucalyptus, and I grab it when I am across town at Trader Joe’s (they have THE BEST GREENERY and it is SO Low-cost!). It smells strong and it lasts a pleasant long time – you can even dry it and have it forever, although I find that it can start to fall apart and it gets sort of a dusty-gray tone after a while. So fresh is my jam over dried (I also simply discovered there are Etsy shops that will send it to you fresh). And in some spots where I want the look, but zero maintenance (aka: the beach house & the duplex) I am a big fan of these $5 Ikea fakers. Yup, that is a fake stem from Ikea in that “vase” below:

I put the word vase in quotes, because the container from the photo above and below is in fact a marble utensil holder, and I enjoy it so much for faux stems since it is not strong at holding actual water, but it looks remarkable with a good fake stem or branch. I have picked up like three of them to use as vases around the beach house and our own house – and I may or may not have picked up two more for the duplex. Hey, when it is enjoy, it is enjoy.

And yes, that stem in the photo above is another Ikea faker. The one key to those is not to bunch too many together. They in fact look a lot more convincing and like real eucalyptus if they are splayed out and not too crowded together if that makes sense.

Bouncing back to the real plant realm, aloe (along with other succulents) can be extra straightforward. It literally needs nothing more than a compact splash of water once every two weeks or so. I enjoy the little pink pot this guy is in (from Ikea a while back – but here is a similar one) because between the greenery and the cute pot, it certainly cheers things up. Plus aloe is known to be one of the better air purifying plants. Score.

Meanwhile in our fully window-less and natural-light-less laundry room, we have a faux succulent. They are typically some of the best fake options since they can look extremely real for some reason (perhaps it is the thick rubber-y leaves that real succulents have?). I have had this faux one for likely a decade (found it at HomeGoods forever ago) but these two look similar and have good ratings.

This one below is another HomeGoods find from eight or so years ago. Yup, it is as old as my oldest child and still going strong. One pointer I have for you is to hit a garden center and buy a pot you enjoy (perhaps an understated concrete one, or even a bright colorful one that makes you smile) and then hit a store like Michael’s and grab a few succulent stems that you can “plant” in the pot. You can even use real dirt. Literally nobody will be able to tell the difference – especially if you pick the succulents out in person and grab only the most real looking options.

That is in fact what I did here, with another pink pot from Ikea – I took these little faux succulents from Michaels a few years back and simply shoved them in there. It is quite convincing, and I enjoy that they are next to my ceramic succulent candle (from Anthro ages ago). Do I enjoy plants or do I enjoy plants?

Also, I get the “how do you dust them” question a lot, so my go-to method is in fact simply a feather duster. I do it before I vacuum like twice a year when I remember, and it simply tosses some dust on the floor and I vacuum it up. I figure every single item you put on any surface of your home needs dusting, so it is not truly a big deal to run a feather duster over a real plant, or a fake one.

I have not truly talked much about faux flowers and it is because I think they are harder to find when it comes to being truly eye-trickingly-realistic. Sometimes they are gelled into that fake water but something about a few of the ones I have seen is not truly quite convincing. Which is why I lean towards real flowers from the grocery store when I need them (Trader Joe’s is a strong place to find affordable flowers). But as for faux flowers, I like fully opaque pots. It simply feels more like these could be real cut flowers and leaves in this vase to my eye. I got these at Target perhaps six months ago, and I enjoy the bright color they add. Wish they still sold them for my fellow pink lovers out there.

This is the laundry room at the beach house, and as I have mentioned, since we are not there for weeks on end, we do not have any real plants there, but that orchid on the top shelf is an Ikea find (so low-cost! And I dropped it into a larger white Ikea pot simply to balance it out a little).

There is also a faux Ikea plant on that first laundry shelf – it is this one – and I have another one at home in the guest room (seen below). They are convincing – especially in larger pots – and the price is fairly strong.

In fact, the one above is this one with the whiter little buds on the edges, and I enjoyed plopping it into a fairly textured pot from HomeGoods. Half the lively of plants = fairly pots.

To go back to the faux flowers thing, and how it is hard to find something colorful that looks real (even the Ikea orchid from our beach house laundry room = white), I do ENJOY these glad yellow ginkgo leaves. They are from Crate & Barrel a while ago, but they brought them back once, so I am hoping they come back again soon.

They are simply a pleasant way to add color and texture – they feel quite spring/summer to me.

Here they are upstairs in the bonus room too. They are versatile because a burst of glad color looks pleasant fairly much anywhere.

One other sort of abstract way to bring greenery into your house is with the use of some truly cool art or even a wallpaper. This leafy mural we hung at the duplex certainly makes the room feel green and alive (you can see how we hung it here).

Plain art can also add that outside/green element to a room that might have less than stellar views – and you never have to water it. These large framed prints are from West Elm a while back, but I have seen similar stuff on Etsy (you know I enjoy these and they also have them with a white background).

Oh yeah and that potted fern above? Fake from Target around a year ago. This one is the current version they make, and it is well rated too.

Let us bounce back into the real greenery realm again, because I feel like I need to pointer my hat to the old “free cuttings” category. Many months of the year, there is free greenery at your disposal if you simply walk outside with a clipper. These cuttings are from the bushes right in front of our house, and I steal from them fairly much every season except for winter when they go dormant.

And whenever I stage houses, you know I enjoy going outside and bringing some 100% free clippings into each room to make it feel alive and simply plain welcoming (you can read alllll about house staging and my other pointers here – I enjoyed writing that post).

Here is a shot of some other “real greenery” we have embraced on a seasonal basis. We enjoy grabbing fresh holiday garlands from Trader Joe’s (they are especially low-cost and last around a month – at least that was our experience this past holiday season). We simply tapped two small nails into the corner of the molding to hold this one up over the sink. And you know while I was at TJ’s I had to grab some fresh eucalyptus too.

We also string up a fresh garland around the front door (in fact it takes two to span that area, so I wire them together with green floral wire, and once again we simply hung them over two small nails on the corner of the trim). But what is worth mentioning is that in this photo, the wreath is also real – I make one out of fresh magnolia leaves every winter at a Wine & Wreath event that I go to with my go-to ladies – but the five foot bushes on either side of the door are faux.

I feel like that is worth noting, because they are so convincing they can literally be right in front of a real garland and next to a large magnolia wreath and they hold their own. We in fact picked up these three foot versions of those front porch bushes first – and enjoyed them. After over a year of use there was no fading or damage to them through rain and snow. So when we painted the house white and hoped something taller next to the door after removing the portico, we upgraded to the 5′ versions and sent the three foot ones to the beach house.

The pots above are from Home Depot (simply in store – cannot find them online) and the copper porch pots from the photo before the one above are a Hands-on project – more on them here.

I will leave you with one last real outdoor plant that has been deliciously low maintenance for us – at least here in our climate. Those big $12 ferns that Home Depot and Kroger sell in the parking lot…. we buy a few each year in the spring. And they last all the way until the quite end of the year when it gets below freezing. There is literally nothing easier than plopping our annual fern friend into a few of the large pots we have out back – I do not even have to touch dirt. And they simply do their thing for nearly a year.

So there you have it, an exhaustive rundown of straightforward green stuff that hopefully will not stress you out like… say… all of the other green stuff I have tried and then failed at and then chose not to list here because IT IS Simply TOO EMOTIONAL FOR ME, OK?!

Also, it occurred to me that as much as John has special eyes for light bulbs, perhaps I have special plant eyes. Because nobody ogles the green stuff like I do.

Enjoy ya, plants. Mean it.

More Plant Guides

If you are looking for more information on some of our go-to plants (real and faux!) check out some of these posts below:

• Golden Pothos Care Guide
• Marble Queen Pothos Care Guide
• Neon Potho Care Guide
• Monstera Deliciosa Care Guide
• Snake Plant Care Guide
• Fiddle Leaf Fig Care Guide
• Tree Philodendron Care Guide
• How to Build An Straightforward Plant Shelf
• Protecting Outdoor Plants In A Deep Freeze
• Getting Began With Houseplants, An Expert Interview
• Straightforward Houseplants To Keep Alive
• 10 Houseplants For Better Indoor Air Quality

P.S. There were SO MANY pictures of our house, the beach house, and the duplex in this post, so if you have paint color or source questions, here is where to find info about our house, here is info about the beach house, and we are simply starting to get duplex info together here.

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