Beautiful Ways to Live Green: Sustainable Decor for your Home

How Silk Flowers Can Help You Live More Eco-Friendly

Preserving the environment is becoming a mainstream concern and everyone is looking for ways to live more responsibly. Yet many people worry about making huge changes to live more eco-friendly. When everyone is on the go, taking kids to soccer practice and commuting to work, cutting down on driving time seems almost impossible. Sacrificing the ease, luxury, and beauty of our lives can seem very daunting.

Automobiles aren't the only culprit. The list of processes, practices, and products that bring our lovely planet a little closer to its demise is never ending. In fact, the list is so vast that it can be completely overwhelming and very difficult to imagine how any small action could ever make a difference. However, green living can take many forms. For almost every area of our lives, there is a green solution.

"Natural" vs. Synthetic:
Many people equate "natural products" and green products in their mind. But this is not always the case. Acquiring natural products can be costly and devastating to the natural environment. For example, wood products have "natural" origins, but earth-saving trees were sacrificed in the process. In the case of your garden and your home, you might think that fresh flowers are a more eco-friendly option, but this is not necessarily the case. Silk flower arrangements and silk plants are beautiful, sustainable, and economical and afford an easy way to make your home more "green".

Saving Water:
Fresh flowers are beautiful, fragrant, and they brighten up any room. But in many cases, silk flowers are a more viable option. How can this be? For starters, fresh flowers and plants require frequent watering to stay alive. Water is a precious commodity that we often take for granted, but every step taken to conserve water is an eco-friendly move. Of course, there are fresh plant options that require very little water and maintenance. However, these are usually cactus and other plants that thrive in arid climates where water is scarce.

If you don't like the prickly possibility, you can always furnish your home and garden with silk flowers and plants. They require no water to stay looking beautiful and you can always find your favorite flower varieties in a faux version. You can conserve water and get the garden look you prefer.

Saving the Air:
When it comes to cut flowers, it's easy and convenient to buy them at the grocery store or florist. But how did they get there? Most of the time, cut flowers are grown in developing countries far, far away from where you are. They're cut, loaded on a plane, and shipped across the globe to florists everywhere. To preserve the look and beauty of the flowers, freight planes must be packed carefully and lightly, making it difficult to maximize shipments. Not to mention, fresh flowers usually only last about two weeks, creating the need for constant and frequent shipments.

Emissions from freight and commercial airplanes wreak havoc on the environment. Even if you take care to live eco-friendly, just a few airplane trips a year can undo all your hard work. Silk flowers and silk plants are permanent. They never die, meaning shipments from manufacturers can be more efficient and less frequent. Silk flowers can be packed more economically and retain their beauty and shape.

The Pesticide Problem:
Pesticides are also a major environmental concern and in countries where cut flowers are often grown, pesticides are used heavily to maximize growth and preserve beauty and freshness. Fresh flowers are susceptible to insects and disease and in order to maximize business and crops, devastating chemicals must be used. Not to mention, preserving and protecting fresh plants in your own back yard can require the use of dangerous chemicals.

These chemicals aren't just dangerous for the environment. Exposing your family to pesticides on any level can create serious health concerns. There are organic gardening methods, but they can be expensive and require some research and understanding. Using silk flowers to decorate your home and garden eliminates the need for pesticide use in your home and your contribution to pesticide use abroad. Silk flowers stay beautiful and "fresh" forever with almost no maintenance. You can protect the environment and the health of your family.

However you choose to approach your contribution to the environment, the only way to fail is to do nothing. Silk flowers provide a beautiful yet sustainable way to decorate your home and garden. Yet they are just one "however simple" way to live a more eco-friendly life. Any green choice you and your family makes is one step closer to changing the way we live.

Don't underestimate your ability to help save the planet. If everyone on earth, even everyone in the United States, made a small adjustment to their lifestyle, as small as choosing silk flowers over live ones, it would make a significant difference. It's your planet and even you can change it.

About the Author
Leigh LaCava, publisher of FreshSilkFlowers.com,

loves the long lasting beauty of silk flowers and plants and has many arrangements throughout her home. Leigh lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband Jeff and their 13-year-old daughter, Ava.

Related Articles

A Better Life Through Interior Decorating
The way your home looks can have an intimate impact on the overall quality of your life. This is a concept which may not seem obvious at first, and yet when you come to realize what a home really means on a psychological, a functional, and even a...

Five areas of your home that can improve it's resale value
There are several things that a homeowner can do to improve the resale value of their home before placing it on the market. Upgrading or refinishing these five critical areas, as well as a few general good practices, can dramatically increase...

Using Crown, Window Or Baseboard Molding Adds Style To Your Home
Crown, window or baseboard moldings are a great decorative feature that you can install yourself with good planning, the right tools, and a little effort.

Wide Open Spaces: How to Tame and Decorate Them
Today's homes are designed and laid out so our public areas, the family room, kitchen, recreation room, dining room, and living room are open to each other for interaction and family unity. But how are you to decorate these rooms...

Protecting Your Home from Hidden Allergens
Are your allergies out of control? Have you considered the possibility that allergens may be hiding in your home? Most people have no idea that some home products may intensely aggravate skin and respiratory allergies.

Interior Decorating for the Single Man
When you are a single guy, there are certain things you want to evoke in the various aspects of your life. You want to appear successful, confident, mature, sophisticated, and even a little sexy. Your home can help you do this, but you have to have...

I Want What I Want but What Do I Want?
If you are like most people, you know what you want and what you don't want. And that's great! Sometimes, however, we are unable to communicate what it is we want in a way that others are able to understand.

Getting Started Decorating Your Home
Decorating should be a fun, exciting adventure, not a painful event. If you're feeling very tense about the whole thing, take a step back and try to determine why.

How to Decorate and Be Different
Cookie-cutter rooms are generally most obvious when every color in the room matches exactly. Matching colors isn't about making sure the shade perfect, it's about using coordinating colors in various shades.

Homes Are Made For Living
Designing and making your home the way you want it to live in forever, one that is the best for everyone!

Home Electricity Conservation: Go Green and Save!
Are your electricity bills climbing monthly? Are you looking for ways to save money in your home budget? Here are a few simple tips to decrease your electrical usage at home. This will allow you to put extra money in your pocket while conserving energy.

Hiding the Hideous Decorating Problem
Everyone has parts of their house that they don't like. Whether your unsightly part is a water heater, a structural element, or a large piece of athletic equipment, you can mask these aspects by...

How to Decorate Our Ceilings
When I talk about how much I love colored ceilings, some people think I'm crazy. Colored ceilings can make a room seem smaller, but mainly they make the room feel closer, more intimate.

Decorating with the Things You Hate
The atrocious red floor. The hideous lime tile. The pink carpet. The lack of money to replace all those things - what will you ever do?

Developing a Haven in Your Home
When you open the front door to your house and step outside, you step into a world of dangers and strangers, uncertainties, and things you simply can't control. It's a big scary world out there...

Designer Radiators: More Than Just Good Looks
The most important part of radiators was to heat the room and you do your best to choose a grey or white that would not attract too much attention. Perhaps you paint it over or put a sofa in front of the whole thing. But now the choice of a radiator...

Decorating with Room Dividers
From half walls to a well-placed sofa, use room dividers to make the most of the space in your home, creating manageable activity areas that still let you enjoy the benefits of open-plan living.

Different Ideas for Home Decor
Your home can look just like your neighbor's because you shop at the same places, be different and find out how you can save.

Decorating Tips & Advice - Design Basics
Decorating has a few basics elements and fundamentals. Learn about the challenges facing any room design.

Decorating Home Tip: Where to Start on All Major Decorating Projects
In what order should you begin your decorating projects? Always start with a good plan!

Creating Special Places in Your Home
In your house, you probably have two types of spaces to decorate: your "predetermined spaces" and your "free spaces." Predetermined spaces are the kitchen, bath bedroom, free spaces is where it gets creative!