How to Use Flowers in Feng Shui Design
Flowers in feng shui are vital symbols of abundance, fertility, and growth. You can use them to both enhance the beauty and elegance of a room and use them to emphasize particular energy in that given space.
Flowers have a powerful connection to the natural world. By incorporating flowers in feng shui design, you can activate the life force, or “chi,” of a room. This will help you to create a harmonious environment that supports well-being and happiness. Consider all the ways you can use flowers in feng shui design, from the flowers themselves to their essence and oils to enhance positive energy throughout your home.
Tips for Using Flowers in Feng Shui
Flowers add a powerful element in both interior and exterior design, but in feng shui, flowers have an added meaning. Understanding the ways you can use flowers to enhance the positive energy of your home will help you create a feng shui design with a more optimal energy flow.
Flowers and the Bagua Map
One way to incorporate flowers into your feng shui home design is by using a bagua to consider the aspects of your life where you want to see more positive energy. Feng shui practitioners use a bagua map to overlay a given space. Each space on the map corresponds to an area of your life.
For example, using the BTB bagua map, the back left area of your space symbolizes wealth and prosperity. You can use purple flowers to help energize the “chi” in this area to bring you more opportunities to increase your abundance. The rear right area of a given space symbolizes love and relationships. You can use pink or red flowers in this area to increase your chances and opportunities to find romance.
Flowers and the Five Elements
The five elements of water, metal, fire, earth, and wood are foundational for creating balance within a feng shui design. Each element also represents distinct qualities that you can invite into your life. You can use colors that represent each element to activate more of their particular energy.
- The wood element symbolizes growth and flexibility. Use flowers that have green and brown coloring, like some hellebores (lenten roses), limelight hydrangeas, and chartreuse gladiolus.
- Use flowers that represent the fire element to invite passion and creativity into your life. Use flowers like roses and tulips to symbolize fire energy.
- Flowers that have white, gray, and metallic coloring symbolize the metal element. Use these flowers if you want to activate precision, clarity, and focused energy. Some of these flowers include silver brunia, white roses, baby’s breath, and white chrysanthemums.
- The earth element represents nurture, stability, and grounding. Use flowers that have a yellow, brown, or burnt orange to symbolize the earth element. Some of these options include sunflowers, marigolds, goldenrod, calendula, and sulfur cosmos.
- Use flowers that symbolize the water element to activate serenity, peace, and abundance. Flowers that have deep blue petals can represent the water element. Some of these include blue anemones, hydrangeas, bluebells, and blue lupines.
Strategic Flower Placement
The placement of symbols is a foundational aspect of feng shui design, and this includes flowers. Avoid placing flowers in places that would block the flow of energy throughout your space. Do not use a flower arrangement to block a window or in a narrow hallway, as this might block the free flow of energy.
You can use flower arrangements near your front entrance to welcome fresh opportunities. Use flowers in your bedroom to attract passionate energy into your relationships. Be sure to position the flowers on the right side of the bed, as feng shui experts believe this is the most auspicious location. Do not use flowers that have a powerful scent, as this can disrupt restful sleep.
Another optimal location for flowers is the dining room or living room. These are both spaces where you want to enhance social and family connections. Bouquets on a coffee or dining table can help promote a comfortable and welcoming environment.
Use Flowers to Create Balance
Feng shui design embodies balance. You can achieve balance by harmonizing the yin and the yang symbols throughout your home. Flowers are also symbols of yin and yang energy. Brightly colored flowers like red, orange, yellow, and purple have aggressive and active yang energy. You can use flowers with this energy if you feel that the yin energy in your home is too strong. You will notice this if you are feeling stagnant and stuck in behavior that you can’t seem to change.
Light-colored flowers of pink, dusky blue, and white have peaceful and receptive yin energy. This energy is beneficial if you are feeling like your home has an overabundance of yang energy. This might mean that you are restless and you can’t settle down.
You can also create balance by using flowers in groups of three. Using flowers in pairs in bedroom spaces is also beneficial.
Maintain Your Flower Arrangements
One of the quickest ways to attract negative energy with flowers is to keep them for too long. Flowers that are not fresh or flowers that are in cloudy water bring negative energy into your home. Maintain your flower arrangements longer by changing out the water when it gets dirty. When your flower arrangement begins to fail, you must discard it.
Using Flower Scents in Your Home
You can use the powerful scents of flowers to enhance the balance of your feng shui design. Lavender has a soothing and calming scent. Use these oils in your bedroom to help enhance restful sleep. Roses are optimal in the bedroom to promote love and romance. Keep the scent in the bedroom mild, as the strong smell can interfere with restful sleep.
Use flower scents throughout your home to drive away bad smells and give your home a more welcoming smell. Positive flower scents in feng shui include jasmine, citrus flowers, honeysuckle, and freesia.
Optimal Flowers in Feng Shui
Flowers have deep meaning in feng shui beliefs. Learn the most auspicious flowers for attracting the type of energy you want into your feng shui home design.
Peonies
Peonies have a lush and elegant shape and create a luxurious style in any room. Peonies come in a variety of colors, from white and blush pink to deep fuschia. In feng shui, peonies are a symbol of love and marriage. Use pink peonies if you want to attract romance into your life. Deep fuschia peonies are ideal for injecting some passion into an existing relationship.
Orchids
In feng shui, orchids are a powerful symbol of fertility and perfection. You can find orchids in a variety of distinct colors. Use deep purple colored orchids to enhance your wealth corner.
Pink and red orchids, like peonies, can be used to enhance your romantic prospects. White orchids symbolize clarity and focus. These are ideal for a home office located in the side front or middle areas of your home. Yellow orchids are another common variation. These orchids represent optimism and positivity.
Chrysanthemums
Chrysanthemums symbolize cheerfulness and joy. They are also associated with the earth element and represent grounding and stability. These are ideal flowers if you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed by life. They help create ease and balance in your life when it feels like it is moving beyond your control.
Lotus
The lotus flower has powerful symbolism in feng shui. Some of its meanings include enlightenment and growth. This flower grows up through the mud, so it is also a symbol of perseverance through challenges. The flower itself never touches the muddy water, so it is also a symbol of purity.
Roses
Roses, like peonies, are another traditional feng shui symbol of love and romance. Because roses have such a wide diversity of colors, you can use roses to activate other specific energy.
Use red or orange roses to ignite passion in a stale romance. Some popular red rose varieties include “Mr. Lincoln ” and”Darcey .” Popular orange roses are “Tropicana” and “Lady Emma Hamilton.” Pink Roses are ideal for cultivating a new romance. “New Dawn” roses have a pale pink coloring. White roses symbolize the metal element and vitalize energy that promotes clarity and focus. Popular white rose varieties include “Winchester Cathedral” and “Iceberg.”
Flowers to Avoid in Feng Shui Design
Just like there are some auspicious flower meanings in feng shui, there are also flower varieties that you should avoid in your home.
Dried Flowers
Dried flowers, like dying flowers, attract negative energy into your space because they are stagnant and lifeless. This is true even if your flower arrangement is meant to be that way.
Flowering Cacti
Cacti are feng shui plants with negative associations. Most cacti have a prickly and sharp growth pattern that feng shui experts associate with overly aggressive energy. Avoid flowers that come from cacti, including prickly pear, saguaro, and rose pereskia.
Thistles
Thistles, like cacti, have a sharp and prickly shape. Avoid these flowers in arrangements for your home, as they are also associated with aggression and negativity.