Feng Shui Plant Placement and the Best Varieties
Feng shui plant placement is a vital consideration in creating a positive impact in the energy flow within a given environment. Feng shui practitioners believe that everything within our spaces carries energy that either hinders or enhances our well-being. Plants are an essential factor in most design schemes. Find ways to position plants for the best feng shui placement as well as which plant varieties are the most auspicious for feng shui.
What is the Importance of Feng Shui Plant Placement?
Every item of decor and architectural detail contributes to the energy flow throughout our home spaces. The ideal placement of plants can help balance the energy in our homes and contribute to better health, feelings of well-being, and abundance. It is best to position plants in different areas throughout the home rather in just one area. This way, you can harness the vital energy of plants in multiple rooms and allow this energy to flow throughout the home.
Feng Shui Plant Placement and the Bagua Map
The bagua map is a tool that feng shui designers use to analyze the energy flow throughout a given space. The map can be scaled to fit over a large space or can be minimized to fit a small area like a single room. Each area of the map represents an aspect of life. You can locate symbols within each area to activate this energy in a particular area of your life.
Career Area
The career area is front and center on the BTB bagua map. This is typically located in your front entrance space. Placing plants with vibrant upward growth will help promote your career and work advancement.
Knowledge and Self-Cultivation
Moving to the left is the section that includes knowledge and self-cultivation. This area signifies the way that you learn and work toward enrichment. Feng shui experts recommend using plants that have expansive growth or plants that have rounded leaves. These plants are associated with calmness and harmonious energy, which can promote clarity, focus, and attention to detail.
Family
Proceeding back along the left side is the family area. Use plants like philodendrons and peace lilies that are easy to grow and have soft, flowing energy. These plants will promote good communication and relations.
Wealth and Prosperity
The left rear section symbolizes wealth and prosperity. Use plants that signify abundance and wealth to promote positive advancements in this area of your life. These include the wide varieties of money plants, including jade plants, golden pothos, and silver dollar vines.
Fame and Reputation
The back middle section of your space is associated with your fame and reputation. Use plants with vibrant colored foliage or flowers like orchids, bromeliads, and birds of paradise to energize and enhance your reputation abroad.
Love and Relationships
The love and relationship section of the bagua is in the right rear corner. Use plants with flowing and rounded growth or plants that we associate with love and connection. Some of these include peace lilies, heartleaf philodendrons, and jasmine.
Children and Creativity
The children and creativity section of the bagua is in the right middle area. Use lush plants to enhance childlike enthusiasm and creativity. Plants like rubber plants with lush growth and spider plants with a playful appearance work well in this section.
Travel and Helpful People
The travel and helpful people section is the front right section of your space. Use plants that foster a sense of exploration and a sense of adventure. Use plants like the lucky bamboo, which is associated with adaptability and growth, if you want to enhance your travel and connection with other people.
Health
The health area is located in the direct center of your space, as it is the source of your well-being. Use plants that promote purity and cleanliness. Some options might include snake plants and spider plants, which are useful in air purification and for their protective qualities.
Feng Shui Plant Placement and the Five Elements
Feng shui experts believe that there are five elements essential in feng shui design, that each contain unique characteristics and qualities. You can use plants to symbolize these elements and create their unique energy.
Wood Element
The wood element symbolizes growth, vitality, and expansion. In one sense, every plant symbolizes the wood element. The plants most associated with the wood element are bamboo, weeping figs, Chinese evergreens (also called Aglaonema), and Fiddle leaf figs.
Fire Element
The fire element represents passion, energy, and vitality. Colors like red and orange also symbolize this element. Use plants that have vibrant orange and red foliage and flowers to generate this energy. These include flame lilies, orchids, birds of paradise, crotons, and bromeliads.
Earth Element
The earth element creates grounding and stability. Use houseplants that symbolize these qualities. Some options include philodendrons, peace lilies, and rubber plants.
Water Element
The water element signifies flexibility, flow, tranquility, and abundance. The houseplant, the lucky bamboo, has a flexible nature that typifies this energy type. The plant types pothos and spider plants have a trailing habitat that reflects water energy well.
Metal Element
The metal element represents precision, clarity, and strength. Use plants that have silver or white coloring to represent metal energy. Plants like the aluminum plant, the Pilea, and silver pothos work well to symbolize the metal element.
Other Tips for Feng Shui Plant Placement
Beyond considering the bagua areas, there are other rules that help guide the best feng shui plant placement in your space.
- Avoid Certain Plants – Try to avoid spiky or sharp leaved-plants in areas where people sleep and rest. These types of plants create tension and anxiety that is not beneficial for feng shui design.
- Healthy Plants – Make sure that you choose plant varieties that work well in your home and the particular area where you put the plant. This will help ensure that your plant stays healthy, as unhealthy and dying plants create negative energy.
- Consider Plant’s Size and Scale – Make sure that you consider the size and scale of your plants in relation to the area you place them. Don’t put an extra large plant in a small room or a tiny plant in a large room unless it is in a noticeable area.
- Quality over Quantity – There is such a thing as too many houseplants in your space. Too many plants create stagnation. Rather than crowding your space with too many plants, add just a few plants in three or four areas of the house to create the best energy flow. Choose areas that you want to energize the most and add plants to these areas.
Best Plant Varieties for Feng Shui Designs
There are certain plants that are easy to maintain and create good energy in feng shui design.
- Money Trees and Plants – Money trees and plants are important in feng shui design as they are believed to promote wealth and abundance. Some of these varieties include jade plants, golden pothos, the Chinese money plant, and the Pachira aquatica.
- Peace Lily – Peace lilies are easy to maintain and gorgeous plants. They have broad, deep-green, and glossy leaves with white flowers. Feng shui experts believe that this plant produces serenity and peace.
- Snake Plant – Snake plants have pointy leaves, which should be generally avoided in feng shui design. Yet, these plants have such a good reputation for air purification and house protection that they are useful in feng shui.
- Ficus Tree – Feng shui belief associates ficus trees with upward growth and stability. Use these stunning plants in areas where you want to create expansion but also security.
- Lucky Bamboo – Lucky bamboo is popular in feng shui designs as it is believed to promote better fortune and prosperity.
Plant Varieties to Avoid in Feng Shui Designs
Even though plants are generally considered auspicious in feng shui design, there are plants that you should avoid.
- Cacti – Spiky or sharp plants, like cacti, should be avoided in feng shui design as they are associated with aggressive and negative energy. Cacti, in particular, are also associated with loneliness and isolation.
- Dead or Dying Plants – Dying or dead plants attract negative energy into your space. Remove the plant from your primary living space if you are trying to revive it. Bring it back when it has regained vibrancy.
- Dried Flowers – Though some dried flowers are lovely, they are dead. These create negative energy in feng shui beliefs.
- Bonsai Trees – Most feng shui experts consider bonsai trees to create negative energy as these plants are stunted by design.
- Large Plants in Small Rooms – Plants that are too large for a room can create aggressive energy that overwhelms it.