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8 Feng Shui Strategies for Arranging and Caring for Houseplants

Do you want to have and feel good energies at home? Here are ways to enrich the energy flow and tranquility in your indoor spaces.

By: THURSD. | 19-03-2025 | 7 min read
How It Works Indoor Plants
Feng shui

Feng shui is a widely known and used traditional Chinese philosophy to arrange and design spaces whether indoors or outdoors to refine harmony, balance, and the flow of energy. Feng shui mastery is the embodiment of energy flow and getting the most out of your space; through the creation of peaceful atmospheres. The incorporation of feng shui into houseplant arrangements and caring is not a new phenomenon but has been practiced over the past decades by different feng shui scholars and followers.

The ultimate goal of using feng shui strategies for houseplant arrangement and caring is to stimulate the flow of energy ('chi') within your space; creating a sense of balance and posterity. Houseplants are mood boosters, enhance productivity, and for some varieties purify the air we breathe indoors, but with feng shui, our houseplants can do so much more.

Here are 8 feng shui strategies that can be incorporated into houseplants to generate balance, harmony, and a flow of positive energy indoors.

Feng Shui Strategic Placement of Your Houseplants

The flow of life and positive energy from our houseplants is only possible when they are the recipients of harmony and positive energy themselves first. This is possible through the strategic placement of your houseplants in befitting locations within your indoor space. Such locations should have sufficient access to bright indirect or direct light depending on the growing conditions of the associated plant.

 

Stopping and thinking about where to place your favorite houseplants is a careful job everyone must do to align their home to the energy, look, and feel.
Video by @jcchris

 

Placing your plant in locations filled with clutter and where air circulation is not optimal since it hinders its ability to transmit positive energy flow within your indoor spaces. The feng shui approach to the arrangement of a feng shui bedroom or living room, kitchen among other rooms in your indoor space results in balance and flowing co-existence of different energy flows present indoors.

 

The placement of houseplants at home
The detailed placement of houseplants in certain spots in a living room

 

These plants and strategic arrangements using the feng shui philosophies tend to tap more into the positivity and character plants embody; it is a sure way to gain more from houseplants while creating calm and a beneficial pattern within your living spaces.

 

Feng Shui Elements
Picture by @Casas Designs

 

Balancing Feng Shui Elements With Plants

The creation of a balance between the five elements of feng shui contributes to balance and harmony; which in turn influences energy flow. The five elements; wood, earth, fire, metal, and water are crucial because each one of these elements speaks to different aspects of life independently.

 

Girl in her living room with houseplants
Surrounded by good plant energy to bring forward feelings of calm and tranquility overall
Photo: @foliagelove_r

 

The wood element represents growth and vitality, and this is where your houseplants with fresh and green foliage come in. Going for tall leafy houseplants can suffice because they massively bring much-needed growth energy indoors. The wood element is vital to the health and well-being of humans, it is this green living, which has the power to influence the flow of positive energy in our living spaces.

 

Plants in feng shui
A spider plant is one of the most popular houseplants to enhance a feng shui ambiance at home
Photo: @mindfuldesignschool

 

To enhance the balance of feng shui elements in your living spaces; consider choosing items that can symbolize the other four elements; fire, earth, metal, and water. Fire stands for passion and transformation; flowers with shades of red, purple, and orange can create such an equilibrium. Therefore, planting a plant with orange, purple, red, or orange flowers indoors can strategically help stimulate passion or the fire feng shui element.

 

Monstera Deliciosa bringing happiness to home spaces
Monstera Deliciosa brings happiness and green energy to a home
Photo: @simplyserenezurich

 

The earth element can be adopted through the use of soil, pebbles, stones, and pottery as a medium to grow your houseplants. Metal decorative items, sculptures, and other metal pieces of art can incorporate the metal feng shui element indoors. Water represents abundance and flow of life, strategic use and placement of water add detailed and yet positive results to the flow of energy. Due to the limitation of space indoors, the use of an aquarium can help add the aspect of water elements creating the desired balance of elements with plants indoors.

 

Plants receiving sun in a living room
Feng shui claims to use energy forces to harmonize any space and this is what these plants do
Photo: @nelplant

 

Health and Growth of Plants in the Feng Shui Way

When your plants struggle to grow optimally due to neglect or lack of optimal attention; this redundant growth hinders balance, harmony, and flow of energy as championed by feng shui principles. Provision of the right amount of light, watering, pruning, repotting your plants on time, and applying fertilizer enhances your houseplants' health.

 

Green plants that bring good energy and freshness
Green plants that bring good spirits and freshness to indoor spaces

 

When the above caring is applied timely to your plants including getting rid of dead or wilted foliage; debris or clutters which might be stumbling blocks to the flow of energy from your houseplants can be eradicated. Healthy and thriving plants are good agents of positive energy flow while struggling and retarded plants hinder balance and tranquility in your indoor spaces.

 

Feng shui plants in a bathroom
Feng shui plants in a bathroom

 

Houseplants Shapes and Sizes Feng Shui Interpretation

Houseplants with well-shaped foliage like Fiddle Leaf Fig, Elephant Ear, and Rubber Plant among others, resonate well with shapes and patterns that support positive energy flow. However, spiky or thorny houseplants like cacti varieties should be adopted and used cautiously, because excess of such plants tends to be counterproductive.

 

Fiddle Leaf Fig in a living room
A Fiddle Leaf Fig enlightening indoor spaces
Photo: @thegoodrichwife

 

Houseplants can stimulate a positive mood, improve our productivity, and transform our indoor ambiance; but according to the feng shui principles shapes and sizes of such plants play a significant wrong in enhancing or inhibiting this flow. A balance of tall houseplants and smaller ones creates a contrast that fits well with the balance and harmony of this philosophy.

 

Plants that harmonize a living room
Photo: @morrisfengshui

 

Placement of Plants in the Entry or Front Door

As you focus on the arrangement of your houseplants in a bid to create the recommended patterns, do not overlook your entryways or the front door. Placement of plants in your front door, according to the feng shui philosophy invites positive energy and tranquility to your home.

Be careful not to overcrowd your front door or entryways with plants because this might obstruct the drift of energy instead of encouraging it.

Feng Shui Living Room Plants

The living room is the place of insightful conversations, entertainment and also reading for those who do not have a study room. The living room ought to be transformed by the cleansing and purifying nature of plants. Feng shui living room plants to be used within your living room spaces include; the snake plant, Peace Lilies, and spider plant among others. Living room plants should complement the interior decor in place to avoid a clash, which might result in tampering with the flow and the quality thereof.

 

Beautiful snake plant in feng shui
A luscious, green snake plant used to amplify harmonious spaces
Photo: @kiss_my_plants

 

Keep in mind that feng shui philosophy has been in existence for ages and thus its interpretation and application might differ from one person to another. However, when it comes to houseplants, the goal is to create balance with all the objects and items of decor in your indoor space. Feng shui affirms once again why less can be more in most cases.

 

Never trust a house with no plants
"Never trust a house with no plants"
Photo: @tjahnke

 

There are plenty of feng shui experts to learn from, especially when you desire to fully become a master of this philosophy and seek to apply it in every aspect of your life. The above 8 feng shui strategies for arranging and caring for your houseplants, add immensely to the benefits of plants beyond the aesthetics by enhancing the creation of a perfect ambiance at all times. Grow houseplants resourcefully with feng shui strategies; this is feng shui living.

You should try it!

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