Offices, cafes and hotels all want the welcome that greenery brings, but none of them can spare the time to keep real plants alive across long opening hours and low-light corners. Faux planting solves that, though commercial spaces raise questions a home never does. Here are the ones we are asked most, with straight answers.
Won't fake plants look cheap to customers?
Only if you buy small and sparse. Scale is what reads as considered in a commercial room. A single large specimen like the 180cm Artificial Ficus Tree Green Realistic, 180cm of full green canopy for £67.99, anchors a reception or a cafe corner and looks generous rather than token. Customers register the softness and the height long before they inspect a leaf, so investing in one proper floor tree beats scattering several tiny pots.
What about fire regulations in public spaces?
For hospitality and workplace settings this is the right question to ask, and we carry pieces made specifically for it. The 210cm Artificial Fire Retardant Areca Palm Tree stands 210cm and is fire retardant, priced at £199.99, while the 200cm Artificial Fire Retardant Natural Bamboo Tree offers a 200cm fire-retardant screen for £199.99. Both suit lobbies, corridors and dining rooms where that specification matters. You will find the full selection in our fire-resistant trees range.
How do I green a wall or divide a space without floor room?
Where floor space is at a premium, go vertical. The 100cm Artificial Green Wall Panel Mixed Foliage Faux Living is a 100cm mixed-foliage panel for £59.99 that tiles together across a wall or a bar front, turning a blank surface into a lush backdrop for a fraction of the upkeep of a living wall. Panels also make excellent dividers between seating zones in an open cafe or office. Browse the green wall panels to plan the coverage you need.
Which plants survive a dark corner or a windowless meeting room?
All of them, which is precisely the advantage. A living palm would drop leaves in a windowless breakout room within weeks; a faux one will not. The 150cm Kentia Palm Artificial Tree brings an elegant 150cm palm silhouette for £59.99 to exactly those spots where daylight never reaches. Site them for design impact, not for the light, because light is no longer a constraint.
How much maintenance is involved?
An occasional dust with a soft cloth or a light going-over with a duster is the whole routine. There is no watering rota for staff to forget, no feeding, no repotting and no seasonal decline, which is what makes faux planting so practical across a business with a lot of greenery and no gardener. For a busy cafe or a multi-floor office, that reliability is often the deciding factor.
Does it actually save money over the life of a fit-out?
Over a few years, usually yes. A living scheme in a commercial space often carries a maintenance contract, with a visitor coming round to water, feed, prune and replace anything that has died in a dark corner. Those visits add up, and so do the replacements, because plants under stress in low light rarely last. A faux scheme has a single upfront cost and then almost nothing, no contract, no replacements and no write-offs when a specimen gives up over a cold bank holiday weekend with the heating off. For a landlord or an operator planning a fit-out, the sums tend to favour artificial once you count the ongoing cost of watering, feeding and replacing living plants rather than the purchase price alone.
Will the same plants suit very different rooms?
A small, well-chosen core range stretches surprisingly far. A tall floor tree, a mid-height palm and a wall panel will cover the majority of situations across a mixed site, from a bright atrium to a windowless stairwell, simply by changing where each goes. Keeping to a tight palette of species and pots across a whole building is also what makes a commercial scheme look designed rather than assembled piece by piece.
Matching plants to the setting
- Offices: tall floor trees to soften hard desks and glass, plus panels to break up open-plan sightlines. See office plants.
- Cafes and restaurants: greenery between tables for a sense of privacy and calm. Explore restaurant plants.
- Hotels, salons and spas: statement specimens in reception and treatment areas that stay pristine in any light. Browse salon, spa and hotel plants and the wider commercial range.
Across all three settings the appeal is the same: the warmth and welcome of greenery with none of the labour, and none of the tired, half-dead specimens that undo a professional room. UK delivery is free over £30, there is a 30-day return window, and because the plants never change, the look you sign off is the look your customers see all year.
