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How to breathe new life into a drab indoor garden

You’ve got yourself some potted plants, have you? Maybe you’ve got some boxes full of tomatoes or a corner of your balcony packed with various bits of shrubbery, or a windowsill covered with mint, rosemary, basil, thyme, and parsley.

However, what do you do when everything just seems so humdrum, so yawn-inducing, and you desperately feel the urge to breathe new life into your drab indoor garden?

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Well! So glad you asked! In the article below, we’re going to discuss exactly how you can take your typical indoor garden efforts and spruce everything up. Through colorful, stylish designs and cultivating new plants, you can bring new life to your home.

Before diving in, remember that your options are almost limitless, and any restrictions are ones you’ve placed there yourself.

Bring color to your indoor garden

Oh, that’s easy – add flowering plants to those areas where you’ve placed other plants. You’ve likely got plenty of greenery already, so consider adding flowering plants like the African violet, amaryllis, the Kaffir lily, or the purple shamrock. Alternatively, think about adding plants that have vibrant foliage, berries, or bark. (Be sure they’re not a poisonous variety, especially if you have kids or if kids frequent your home.)

Indoor garden in atrium
Photo by Lucas Craig from Pexels

Indoor garden design

As noted above, many people take advantage of available space within their homes. They fill up windowsills, back porches, and indoor patios or balconies when choosing space for their indoor gardens. However, there’s much more to good interior garden design than simply placing plants in whatever space you feel is available.

There are ways to fill up open spaces and ensure that everything is aesthetically pleasing when doing so. For example, some great indoor patio ideas might be the following:

Indoor atrium

First of all, when it comes to spicing up your indoor patio or back porch garden, adding colorful, flowering plants isn’t the only way to add splashes of color. Since it’s indoors, what’s to stop you from adding art to your space?

Consider incorporating murals into tile on the patio floor and paintings on the walls. Additionally, you can use furniture as art while throwing in colorful pillows. Decorate up or down according to your preference.

Of course, you might think that’s just interior design, so where’s the garden design in all of this? As long as your patio or back porch is an enclosed area, you could add a trellis to one or more walls. Then, invest in ivy and climbing plants (hopefully some that bloom) and allow them to grow and climb the trellis.

As long as you care for them and keep them in line, you could have an incredibly exciting garden atrium, perfect for moments of contemplation and inspiration.

The bathroom garden

You’ve already invested in a Jacuzzi, right? Well, even if you haven’t and you just like taking hot showers or baths, your bathroom can be transformed from the mundane into an exciting, tropical oasis. Imagine soaking in a hot bath surrounded by lush, tropical vegetation!

It’s entirely possible because tropical plants will love living in a bathroom with frequent, steamy showers and baths, which put off steam and increase the room’s humidity.

Perfect plants for your bathroom’s indoor garden might be orchids, begonias, snake plants, Chinese evergreens, and ZZ plants.

Planting along your wall

If you’re low on space, say if your indoor patio or back porch is largely taken up with storage, you can still invest in a wall planter. You can find these in many different styles, which will allow you to match your indoor garden to whatever other decor you’ve got going on.

Popular trends include going a bit wild and going with hydroponic wall planters. However, you can always choose minimalist or

rustic styles

and not go wrong.

Garden suspension

Visually engaging, another back porch garden idea for those limited on space is simply suspending your indoor garden. For example, you could take

terra cotta pots

, thread stainless-steel rods through them, then suspend them from some horizontal surface (or ceiling).

Another thought might be to take a cactus or succulent and place it in a clear, blown glass vase. Use some twine and tie the vase up, as with the terra cotta pots mentioned above, to a horizontal surface and suspend it in a corner. You can do this with multiple vases and arrange them like wind chimes! Just ensure that you place them far enough apart so that they don’t bump into each other and break if someone accidentally brushes by them.

Indoor garden filled with plants
TheFacesISeek (Saptarshi)/Pexels

Make your indoor garden exciting!

There are plenty of indoor patio ideas to go around. Whether you’re wanting to be uber-artistic, or you just want to be a cut above average, your back porch garden (or any other indoor garden you’ve got) doesn’t have to be boring.

Remember that you’re limited only by your imagination. Practically everything is customizable, and you have a world of options. Also, recall that bringing plants into your home isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s also about fun. Experiment with the nooks and crannies your home makes available to you and create spaces you and your family will enjoy!

Will Blesch
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Blesch is a copywriter, content writer, and someone passionate about anything that lets him discover more about this…
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