Displaying your houseplants

When it comes to houseplants, there's no reason why you shouldn't put your garden design skills to good use in just the same way as you would any outdoor display.

Houseplants may look more exotic – among the choice in our garden centre in Newent you'll find lush green ferns, stately weeping figs, orchids and sumptuous velvety-leaved begonias. But the principles are still the same, and a carefully-chosen group will always have far more impact than one plant standing on its own.

Follow our top tips for how to show off your houseplants at their very best.

Match houseplants to your interior décor: picking up your colour scheme in the foliage of your plants is a sure way to add serious wow factor to interior style. Plum-coloured curtains or upholstery echoed in a purple-flowered streptocarpus, for example, brings out the colour in both material and plant. The same trick works with texture, like shiny, reflective leaves in a modern chrome-and-glass kitchen.

Repeat the same plant: several identical plants repeated along a hallway or up stairs invite your eye to follow them – a great way to highlight something in your home, whether it's a sculpture or a signature piece of furniture. Clipped green plants like ivy or privet can be made into elegant topiary that's stylish and bold.

Choose contrasts: when you're picking plants to group together, go for opposites. Tall, upright plants like dracaena work well with lower-growing, like philodendron, and small-leaved ivy contrasts with the broader leaves of the peace lily. Colours, too, can provide fabulous effects: try clover-like purple oxalis paired with yellow-flowered kalanchoe.

Plant a big specimen pot: several different houseplants can go in the same pot, as long as it's big enough and all the plants like the same conditions - shade-loving ferns, for example, go well with peace lilies which don't like full sun either. Then just choose your group so there's one taller plant to give the display height, then mid-height plants and low-growing or cascading plants to cover the soil for a pleasing, well-balanced display.

Please ask the staff in our Newent garden centre for more information and advice about grouping your houseplants together.