This is a post by Sharon Naylor

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

Your gorgeous garden statuaries and garden planters don’t have to suffer outside in the cold and wind, nor do they have to hide in your garage during the winter months. Bring those pretty garden accents like stone planters and urns inside to add a new and natural look to your indoor décor.

Which home garden accents can come inside? Everything from stone and ceramic pedestal planters to planting boxes, small stone décor such as stone butterflies and birds, birdbaths (cleaned well, of course), fountains and more.

Here are the top ways to get double the life from your garden accents, creating attractive and functional new décor pieces for your home:

Set cast stone urns by your front entryway to hold indoor fresh garden plants

• Set small cast stone urns on your bathroom vanity table to hold fresh flowers.

• Fill small cast stone urns with smooth and shiny river stones and place next to the bathroom sink.

• Set a cast stone urn filled with either garden plants, fresh flowers or river stones on your kitchen countertop or kitchen island as an attractive, natural focal point.
• Set cast stone urns or pedestal planters on either side of your fireplace.

• Set elongated planter boxes next to your fireplace to hold logs and kindling.

• If you have an enclosed porch, decorate that space with multiple garden accents such as planters and urns filled with greenery or river stones.

• A small, stone birdbath can hold not water, but no-fuss décor items such as a display of stones, moss, and decorative branches.

• Birdbath garden accents can be used as an indoor water garden, with fresh green plants ‘living’ there.

• A fountain moved into the corner of a living room and surrounded by potted garden plants creates a Zen atmosphere for those long winter months.
A statue moved into the corner of a living room or den, surrounded by potted plants, creates a conservatory look that’s used in many of the finest New Jersey restaurants and banquet halls and is a new trend – our customers consider garden statuary for both its outdoor and indoor accenting.

• Small stone planters make excellent table centerpieces, especially when filled with fruits such as shiny green apples or cheery lemons.

Explore the garden accents here at The Farm in Chatham, New Jersey to bring outdoor garden décor into your home and to talk with our garden and design experts about unique and creative placement of our most unique home and garden accents.

This is a post by Sharon Naylor

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

Take a close look at your indoor plants, and you’ll likely see a fine coating of dust on your plants’ leaves. You might not have noticed it before, but it’s quite a danger to the health and appearance of your green plants and flowering plants. Here’s why: even the finest layer of dust on your houseplants will block sunlight and limit your plant’s ability to photosynthesize. A plant needs its leaves to be clean and clear so that it can nourish itself and grow, and any disruption of that process leads to a stressed plant with perhaps spots on the leaves, dying shoots and diseases. An unhealthy indoor plant is also more susceptible to pest infestation.

Here are some methods to safely clean your indoor plants to keep them healthy and beautiful:

• Spray them with water. Bring your potted plants to your kitchen sink, or to a wash sink in your laundry area, and spray them with lukewarm water. Cold or hot water will injure your plant and can cause more harm than good. Often, a good rinse will remove dust from your garden plants.

Or, spray your plants with a specialized garden supply plant cleaning product, such as the natural and organic plant cleaning solutions that we offer here at The Farm in Chatham, New Jersey.

• Another method is gently wiping each leaf of your plant with a damp microfiber cloth to remove dust accumulation.

• If your indoor plant does not have smooth leaves, or – like African violets – cannot tolerate their leaves getting sprayed with water, gently dust using a soft duster wand. Plants with spikier leaves are best dusted using a soft vegetable-cleaning brush.

• Do not use a compressed-air tool such as those used to blow dust out of computer keyboards. The icy cold air will damage or kill your indoor plants.

Once your plants are well-dusted, use scissors to cut off any discolored or dead leaves. Never pull plant leaves off by hand unless they fall off easily upon your touch. Cut off any browned leaf tips, and prune your indoor plant into a natural, attractive shape.

Here at The Farm, we use a garden supply product called Leafshine from FloralLife, spraying the leaves of our garden plants to give them a clean, beautiful shine, and we offer Leafshine and other plant-cleaning products here in our gardening supplies section.

If you keep your plants clean and dust-free on a regular basis, they’ll continue to thrive as beautiful accents to your home or office.