Plants at Home

Featured Pro: Kristan Cunningham
Category: Home Décor
Time: 1:52


KRISTAN CUNNINGHAM: Hi. I’m Kristan Cunningham, and I’ve got another GMC Trade Secret, brought to you by the GMC Acadia.

Plants can help fill a room, and they add a lot of life. But add too many and it becomes a jungle. So come with me and I’m going to show you how to use them without overdoing it.

My favorite plant on the planet is the fiddle-leaf ficus – not fiddly – fiddle-leaf. And that’s because each leaf looks like a big fiddle. So they’re graphic. They’re big and waxy. And if you’re going to pick one statement plant for a room, this is it. They branch out. They get sculptural. And further enhancing that is this little up-light in the back. It was around $10 from a hardware superstore. And what it does is cast these sexy shadows in the background. So you’ve got something that’s super-simple and creates so much impact in a room.

When I’m trying to create big drama in a room, one of my simple tricks is to take a pair of plants – I love ferns, because they’re classic, timeless; they go in any interior – pop them on pedestals. Then you’ve got a symmetrical, formal, very soft look, but very, very classic.

Let’s take a look at some other ideas. And for this last idea, think of everything that you know about tchotchkes. If you’ve got more than a few of something, group it together and it becomes a collection, right? Same thing with plants. You can have lots of them, but think of it more as a collection. Make yourself a purveyor of plants.

I went for mainly succulence here, but the cool thing is we’ve got them on shelves and we have all kinds of interesting items that they’re then contained in. This is an old chafing dish. We’ve got a set of vintage scales. We’ve got a ball jar, shot glasses, everything you can think of. The thing tying them together is this greenery. But then you can get creative with your dirt, with your rocks. You can even put shells in some of them. There are so many things that you can do. Knock yourself out. Have fun with it.

I’m Kristan Cunningham, and that’s your GMC Trade Secret on decorating with plants.