Your home is your sanctuary — the place where you feel a sense of peace and calm — so why not enhance your space by bringing the beauty of nature inside? Adding flowers to your home décor is a great way to freshen up any room, and there are many benefits to bringing beautiful blooms indoors, too.
Valerie Ghitelman, vice president of product development, design & sourcing at 1-800-Flowers.com, knows firsthand what benefits bouquets and potted plants can have in your interior space. Here’s her reasoning for why filling your home with flowers is a good idea.
1. Flowers cultivate certain moods
Your home sets the tone for your day and can influence your well-being and outlook on life. You can control that mood by filling your space with flowers that cultivate the mindset you want.
“When I see a bouquet with a softer palette, I feel calm and serene, so I find it lowers my stress level,” Ghitelman says. “I prefer soft pastels because I find pastels are relaxing. I also enjoy white flowers that have a sense of calm and provide a tranquil environment. Bright colors are exciting and can really boost your energy and make you feel very exhilarated and happy.”
You can change your floral arrangement coloring based on the room — soft neutrals for a relaxing bedroom or bright accent colors in the dining room to foster lively conversation.
2. Flowers are natural conversation starters
Choosing floral arrangements that resonate with your personality lets you stand out from the crowd while also being a natural conversation starter in your home décor.
“I am very fond of cymbidium orchids because of their shape, beauty, and color, as well as their ability to last so long,” Ghitelman says. “They are a statement flower that sits high above many others, elegant and statuesque, so much so that even a single stem is a talking point.”
3. Flowers add a sense of intentionality to your space
A bouquet of fresh flowers adds the finishing touch to any room and can even make the space feel staged for a showing. Choose your indoor flowers carefully to cultivate the aesthetic you are looking for. For example, Ghitelman loves the soft petals and almost translucent colors of peonies for their ability to calm down a busy décor space and tie competing elements together.
4. Flowers make you feel more in touch with nature
There are endless benefits associated with bringing a sense of the outdoors into your home. “Today, more than ever, people are inspired by nature and how flowers and plants can bring them closer to nature and enhance their environment and create natural ambiance,” Ghitelman says.
Consider bringing big potted plants into your living room or using hanging baskets to offset a window. You’ll benefit from the fresh, filtered air they produce as well as from the mental health benefits associated with being in nature.
And, counterintuitively, keeping large plants in your home can create the perception of more room. “Having a natural environment in your home can make you feel like you have more space and you are a part of the outdoors, which is very enlightening,” Ghitelman says.
5. Flowers elevate your mood
It’s hard to have a bad day when you’re surrounded by beauty. Research shows that flowers improve our mental health by triggering happy emotions and even positive social behaviors.
For example, one Harvard study found that decorating with a fresh bouquet for even one week led participants to feel more compassion for others, experience less worry and anxiety, and develop fewer feelings of depression. Best of all, these effects lasted for them while at work, even when flowers weren’t present at the office.
6. Flowers positively influence your sense of smell
The world of scents is a billion-dollar industry. Who doesn’t love to fill their home with candles and essential oils on occasion? But if you want to enjoy fresh floral scents in their purest form, there’s nothing that compares to flower bouquets in your home.
“Flowers possess a unique and wholesome fragrance that can be uplifting and pleasurable,” Ghitelman says. “All flowers have a natural scent, but some have a more provocative fragrance that is truly unforgettable. Your sense of smell is also connected to memory, so if you smell a specific flower while you’re relaxed, you may feel the same relaxation and calm when you remember that scent.”
If you’re choosing flowers for their fragrance potential, Ghitelman suggests a bouquet of lilies, roses, hyacinth, garden roses, peony, oriental lilies, freesia, lily of the valley, gardenia, or honeysuckle.
7. Plants give you the satisfaction of caretaking
When your world shrinks down to the size of your home, there’s a lot of satisfaction to be gained from caring for plants within it. Pruning, watering, and fertilizing potted plants gives you something external to focus on each day. As Ghitelman says, it’s rewarding to have a room full of healthy plants that are only there because of you.
8. Flowers add a pop of color
For those who get bored with the same styling for too long, flowers offer a quick way to switch things up. A bold-hued bouquet can add a pop of color to neutral spaces like bathrooms, and you can change up the color scheme every week.
AUTHOR
Lydia Noyes specializes in content creation related to environmental topics, homesteading, organic gardening, health, fitness, and nutrition. Her online writing is featured in hundreds of articles for brands and publications within the health and wellness industry, including the popular gardening website, Rural Sprout.