The Plant Faux Pas HGTV's David Bromstad 'Despises' And Why

David Bromstad has hosted HGTV shows ranging from Color Splash to My Lottery Dream Home. And as a former Disney illustrator and the first winner of HGTV's Design Star, he clearly knows his stuff when it comes to creating beautiful spaces and using color well. Given his impressive experience, his belief that artificial greenery and faux flowers are a complete faux pas may be worth considering.

Bromstad shared his disdain for using fake flowers in decorating when talking to HuffPost back in 2013. When asked what elements no one should have in their home, he bluntly replied that he despises "vases and pots filled with fake flowers and plants... Real flowers and plants bring life into a space and for very little investment." While swapping out your plastic greenery and florals for real ones may not seem like it would make that much of a difference, Bromstad is right that it can be affordable and easy, making it more than worth trying. 

While it feels like buying flowers weekly from a florist would be expensive (and it certainly can be), you may also be able to find a great price on fresh flowers if you shop around. Purchasing a small bouquet and supplementing it with cuttings from shrubs in your yard can be a great strategy to bring life to your space affordably. You can also grow your own flowers and houseplants outright. This could range from simply bringing home a low-maintenance house plant or two, like a pothos or snake plant, to creating an entire cutting garden in your yard so you can create your own floral arrangements. 

One great way to follow David Bromstad's advice and make sure your home is full of fresh flowers during the growing season is by creating your own cutting garden. Designating some of your garden space for flowers with tall stems and long vase lives ensures you have plenty of real flowers to enjoy in bouquets all season. This could include a mix of annuals like celosia, statice, and sunflowers. Some perennials can also make excellent cut flowers. Black-eyed Susans, which are hardy in USDA hardiness zones 3 through 8, and yarrow, hardy in zones 3 through 9, are both excellent additions to vases. 

If you don't already have the seeds and garden space available, there are some meaningful start-up costs to creating a cutting garden, and some of these plants are easier to grow than others. But many of the landscape plants that may already be growing in your yard can also make excellent bouquets. You can even use most hydrangeas as cut flowers. Depending on the species, hydrangeas can be hardy in zones 3 through 9. 

While bringing in real flowers can be a challenge during winter in some parts of the country, there are plenty of other ways to follow David Bromstad's advice and use live plants. Caring for a few indoor foliage plants can make a huge difference. If you miss having blooms around, though, there are also plenty of flowering plants that grow well indoors. Orchids and African violets are both known for flowering during winter, and even just greenery does the trick of adding life to your space.