Whether selecting greenery for a corporate office space or deciding on plants for your residential home, the choice between live and artificial plants can be tricky. Each has its benefits and downsides, so let’s talk about the pros and cons of both live and fake plants.

Pros and Cons of Artificial Plants

The pros of artificial plants include:

• Low maintenance: Unlike live plants, faux plants don’t require any particular care to keep them looking good.
• Durability: Often made from plastic, artificial plants can withstand most environmental conditions and hold their shape during movement.
• Décor: Always looking vibrant, faux plants make for stylish décor that can bring a space together.

The cons of artificial plants include:

• No health benefits: While live plants provide a myriad of mental, psychological, and physical health benefits, fake plants do not.
• Fake-looking: Depending on the style and quality of the artificial plant, most are easily identifiable as fake, which can impact the desired look and feel of a space.
• Plant health satisfaction: Many individuals develop true satisfaction by caring for live plants and seeing them bloom, which cannot be achieved with fake plants.
• Not indestructible: While many believe that fake plants can withstand anything, they are still susceptible to fading in the sun, gathering dust, and becoming dingy over time.
• Environmental unsustainability: Unlike live plants, artificial plants are typically not designed to be environmentally sustainable, resulting in waste when no longer used.
• Health and safety: Some artificial plants are made from PVC or other volatile compounds, which can potentially be harmful to humans from the gasses they give off.

Pros and Cons of Live Plants

The pros of live plants include:

• Extensive health benefits: Live plants provide many important health benefits, including decreased anxiety, stress, and mental fatigue, as well as increased positive mood and social connections.
• Working benefits: When considering plants for a corporate or home office, live plants have been shown to increase productivity, creativity, attention spans, and short-term memory.
• Plant health satisfaction: As previously mentioned, many enjoy the satisfaction of caring for live plants and bringing them to life.
• Décor: Live plants can be beautiful to look at and add a vibrance and style to enhance any space.
• Environmentally sustainable: While artificial plants create waste when no longer used, live plants decompose back into the environment, creating less waste.

The cons of live plants include:

• Maintenance: Live plants can be harder to maintain than artificial ones, requiring certain balances of water, sunlight, and environment to be their healthiest.

Which Plant Type Is Right For You?

While both live and faux plants have their advantages and disadvantages, the benefits of live plants can far outweigh those of artificial ones. Need help deciding the right direction of plants for your space? The experts at Raimondi Horticultural Group are here to help.