Floating shelves are a highly effective design element that brings both function and style to any space within your home. Allowing you to benefit from additional storage and display space without the bulk of traditional shelving, they provide a clean, sleek aesthetic that complements any aesthetic.
Whether you already have floating shelves in your home or are considering installing them, using plants to decorate them can help take your styling to the next level. If you are already a great lover of using plants indoors and seeking more space to indulge in this, floating shelves are the perfect solution.
In this guide, we’ve compiled a collection of creative, fun and practical ways to elevate your space using floating shelves and plants. Focused on using our range of exceptionally lifelike artificial plants, these ideas are perfectly suited to those with no green thumb or who simply desire greenery with minimal upkeep.
Floating Shelves & Plants – Perfectly Pairing Practicality & Style
No matter your preferred style or the size of your space, using floating shelves to display plants can instantly add interest and provide a more tranquil, welcoming environment.
Here are 6 of our favourite ways to utilise floating shelves and plants to transform your home.
1. Floating Plant Frames
A twist on the classic wall planter, floating plant frames allow you to hang plants on your wall as an intriguing artistic display. Featuring a frame fixed to the wall, a shelf or a circular loop at its base that extrudes outwards then holds a potted plant.
Creating the illusion of a plant floating within a frame, this idea is a great way to show off a sculptural plant like agave – particularly if spot-lit. Alternately, placed in a group of three or more up a stairwell, trailing plants can work well to take advantage of the wall height for added visual interest.
2. Laddered Floating Shelves
Perfect for deep window ledges or alcoves, laddered floating shelves can be a great way to maximise unused space. They can be placed from floor to ceiling, bench height to ceiling or in another configuration tailored to your home and needs.
Decorated with a mixture of plants, books, curios and knick-knacks, these floating shelves can help you create a curated display that reflects your personal style. For maximum impact, we recommend using an uneven number of plants both trailing and not.
For instance, a lush ruscus with cascading greenery displayed in a quirky pot alongside a patterned polka dot begonia and a trailing pink string of hearts can be the perfect hit of dopamine decor.
3. Corner Shelves
Installing floating shelves in a corner and decorating them with plants is a great way to brighten a dull corner and put your plants on show. We recommend installing multiple shelves at evenly spaced heights and then placing trailing plants with lighter-coloured foliage at the top and those with darker foliage towards the middle. This will naturally draw the eye up for a more dimensional display.
Using lighting and other decorative items amongst the plants can further elevate this idea, as can using shelves of unusual shapes such as those with curving edges or those of differing sizes.
4. Trellised Floating Shelves
If you’re someone who enjoys regularly changing things up, using a trellised shelving solution, better known as gridwall shelving, can help you do just that.
Featuring a gridded mesh that looks like a trellis, this mesh is fixed to the wall and floating shelves can be arranged and attached to this using hooks and rails. You can either place potted plants on the shelves, hang plants from a fitted rail or even hook small wall plant pots to the mesh directly.
Best for smaller potted and trailing plants, this is a fun option for home offices or kitchens where other essentials such as keys and stationery can also be safely and easily stored.
5. Suspended Floating Shelves
If wall space is in short supply, you may like to suspend shelving from the ceiling. A truly floating option, this can be done using wires and wood, glass or another shelf material. A little trickier to install, once secured, these shelves make the perfect place from which to display plants.
Laddered in front of a window for privacy, placed over a kitchen bench or as a unique hanging chandelier-type display over an entryway, this option can really make a design statement.
Trailing ferns, hanging silvery eucalyptus are perfect for shelves suspended high overhead. For those placed lower down at the eye line or in front of a window compact potted plants like a Euonymus or a stunning white orchid can work well also.
6. Vertical Floating Planters
A twist on the laddered shelving, fixing planters on floating shelving brackets is a great solution for both displaying plants and adding practical storage.
In rustic or farmhouse kitchens this idea can look particularly great when used to store bottles of condiments with greenery in planters at the top and bottom. For a fun but edgy way to decorate a bar area, you can do the same but instead of condiments, store spirits and mixers. The latter looks particularly effective when lighting is fitted under each floating planter.
For this option, trailing plants that cascade from the top planter is perfect and more shrubby plants should be used in between any stored goods so access isn’t impeded by hanging foliage. Utilising a mix of plants with different leaf shapes, colours and textures such as peacock plants, spider plants and the Thai constellation monstera can also further elevate this idea.
Why Choose Faux Plants When Decorating Floating Shelves?
Artificial plants are a fantastic solution for those who love the idea of plants but lack the time or ability to care for live ones.
When choosing faux plants over live ones for floating shelves, there are also some added benefits such as:
- Being more lightweight than live plants potted in soil.
- Being ideal for darker locations with minimal light or hot spots where live plants would fail to thrive.
- Being perfectly suited for decorating high shelves or those in hard-to-reach places, you can simply set and forget!
- Giving you greater choice over plant type, texture, colour or similar as they require no special growing conditions such as light or temperature.
Aside from a light dusting down at the same time as you wipe down your shelves, artificial plants need next to no care to remain looking fantastic. This gives you the utmost freedom in design so you can decorate your floating shelves however you like with confidence and no ongoing expense or upkeep.
Elevate Your Space Sooner
Committed to providing artificial plants of exceptional quality that are almost imperceptible from the real thing, our range of faux greenery is far from fake in appearance. Ensuring everyone can decorate with plants and bring a touch of nature to their home or workplace, our online store also includes a curated collection of beautiful pots to choose from.
In just a few clicks, you can shop your perfect combination of plants and pots and take your floating shelf decor to all new heights. From fun and playful to classic, modern, rustic, minimalist and more, we’ve got what you need to create a long-lasting, spectacular display no matter your needs or preferences.
Bring one of our floating shelf plant ideas to life or use them as inspiration to make your own, no matter what you decide, we’re confident you’ll love the process. Get started today!