Flowers, freshly cut and placed in a vase are just the thing to make your home sing with happiness!
There are thousands of personalities in our world and we all have different ideas when it comes to interior design, aesthetics and what does and doesn’t look right in our homes. Some of us might opt for subtle pastel tones such as soft grey, dusky ocean breeze or powder pink. Or perhaps you can’t get enough of vibrant tones such as cherry red, flamingo pink or electric lizard! Whatever your colours and whatever your interior styles there will be foliage for you!
Because there is such a mix when it comes to our own individual
stylings regardless of colour not every type of flower or plant is going to look right in your home! For example, my parents have a very old home filled with wonderful antiques, paintings and historical artefacts. It’s full of beautiful ornate decoration and would be overcrowded with a bouquet of multi-coloured flowers. Whereas my brother’s house which has beautiful fine lines and 1960’s decor would suit this wonderful rainbow explosion since it’s a silent homage to the era.
I can tell you right now that my mother would absolutely love this bouquet of flowers, since it is fun, unique and vibrant, but it would just look so busy and tacky in their house. Instead I often suggest they go for something traditional like sunflowers which bring a subtle and timeless vibrance to their home that the rainbow flowers just wouldn’t offer. The huge dark centres of the 
sunflowers also compliment the dark wooded furniture whilst the yellow petals mimic the golden natural lines of the wood. You can get so many types of sunflowers with each colour natural that they’re just a no brainer for a house like my parents!
Now not all of us live in a house, flat or apartment that speaks from the past and we might live in a new building with what I like to call a ‘blank canvas’. This is fantastic as you can put your own mark on the property and turn it into whatever you want. One of my good friends has a property just like this and she has opted for fresh white delicate decor in the living room, covering every available space with ferns and grasses.
It makes the entire place feel fresh and relaxing and is something I myself wanted to achieve when we lived in a town house in London, but I always worried it would feel too much like the office. How wrong I was, just look at the different types of grasses and ferns on offer and have a play in your home. Getting potted plants is also a much more cost-effective way of having some of the outdoors inside.
I also LOVE orchids and succulents and have quite a collection growing on the windowsill at home!
These adorable tropical plants quite literally grow towards the sun and drink hardly any water so are perfect for those forgetful types like me! If you haven’t tried succulents and don’t want the commitment of a potted plant then can I suggest starting with one of these? They need little watering and are quite adorable. I could write an entire blog post on succulents as there are so many variations and ways to keep them. You can get terrariums, enclosed glass domes that self water and even hanging suculants. They are also a fantastic gift and one I have given to a few friends and family members alike!
What are my favourite flowers?
I am lucky to have a partner who loves nature and flowers just like me! He surprises me a lot of the time with flowers so our home is always full of pretty blooms. 
Last week he came home with pastel pink / white Delphinium and roses and they were wonderfully fragrant and pretty and really brighten the home. The thing I love about this is Jon always picks flowers I wouldn’t have thought of and it gives me time to enjoy new blooms and smells instead of sticking to my old-time favourites. He is quite good at picking them too and doesn’t tend to pick anything too bold as he likes to think about the way they will look in the home or where they will go.
Be that as it may, I do indeed have favourites to my ever-growing list of pretty flowers I like to have in the home. One of my favourite flowers is a lily and that is also ironically the name of our rescue cat (though hers is spelt Lilly). There is an old wives tale that lilies are bad luck, but I think that is just the florists of the time trying to get us to purchase more expensive flowers, just like the ‘all engagement rings should be diamond’ thing. There are so many types of lilies but my favourite are either baby pink scented ones or the white scented ones. There is just something about white lilies that feels clean, pure and makes me feel confident, it’s so strange a flower can do that to us – but when I think about what they do to insects I suppose its natural!
Another favourite of mine is a peony. They are the cutest flower with their elegant and snuggly little petals covering each other like blankets on a bed. 
Another favourite of mine is a bold one and that is tulips! One of my dreams is to visit the tulip fields in Holland and run through them towards a red windmill… They are the most glorious flowers and I can’t imagine how spectacular a field of them would be in person! I love tulips as they suit almost anywhere, a garden, bathroom, bedroom or living room. They even look good in restaurants. These little flowers remind me of a half rose half daffodil with their chubby wet stalks and rainbow petals. You can get so many shapes, sizes and colours its incredible.
The Daffodil. These are possibly one of the most popular flowers in the UK (after roses that are no1). There are so many variations of them again and they are just wonderfully fun and cheerful. I think they strike up happiness in so many of us because of the time of year they bloom and they are a little nod to us that summer is on the way. Like tulips (and most flowers nowadays) there are literally hundreds of types of daffodils. At the RHS Chelsea Flower show this year (and every year) I got to . As a child my mum used to take my little brother and I daffodil picking in a local garden centre. They had field much like the one in the picture below and it was wonderful. This was one of my favourite things to do with my family as a child (apart from strawberry picking) and I will be sure to take my future children flower picking! 
A flower that is always mistaken as daffodils more often than not is this little beauty. The narcissus. They are fragrant, delicate and wonderfully dainty and often sold around easter in pots with their bulbs sticking up. Again, these are a must for any fragrance lover as they will leave your home with a fresh delicate floral scent.
As you will see from the featured photo on this post it is full of wild flowers! I took that photo back in 2012 at Hampton Court Flower Show and it has remained one of my favourite photos ever since. I really hope this post has inspired you to get down your local garden centre, pop to the market or even drop by the flower section in the supermarket! A home with flowers is a happy one.
Love Lucy x
Her Country Living 
This is fantastic Lucy! I hadn’t really thought about flowers like this before. To me they are just flowers. I am going to have a think more when I buy them in future. I also got my first cactus plant yesterday! Brilliant.
LikeLiked by 1 person