I’m actually surprised by the close debate surrounding this, but I’m ready to get into my perspective. I’m team artificial all the way, and there are two main reasons why.

I’m a horrible plant mom. I personally do not hold the level of time, energy, and commitment to take care of real plants in my house. I will look at a vase of flowers, think to myself, “you should change the water,” and then not change the water. I will sit idly by watching them wilt away to the gods because I just don’t put my energy into plant-life. And I know what it takes because my dad and my grandmom used to have whole gardens they tended regularly. I wanna do it, but also, I don’t wanna do it lol.

The hefty reason though, is because I’m allergic. I have artificial flowers in my house right now because I am highly sensitive to smells from plants and flowers. There are some that don’t bother me at all, and there are others that immediately make my throat swell and my eyes water. I don’t even use floral-based perfumes because they have the same reaction. I can’t stand it, but I do love the beauty and softening of plant-life in a space, so artificial it is. How do I design, then, for real plant lovers? Outsourced help, allergy medicine, and face masks lol. I’ll look crazy, but it’ll get done.

Surprisingly enough, I’m not the only person out there who feels this way, and the results are pretty much split in half between who prefers real and who prefers artificial. Which side do you land on?