A nicer home office: more calm and colour at your desk

The home office is the room where many people now spend most hours of the day, and yet it is the last one to get attention when furnishing. A plant on the desk is one of the simplest ways to change that. This article puts into context what greenery at the workplace actually does, and where artificial plants fit in.

What research says about greenery at work, and what it does not

The best-known finding comes from a study by Nieuwenhuis and colleagues at the University of Exeter, published in 2014 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. The researchers followed offices before and after planting and measured noticeably higher work performance in the green rooms, along with more satisfaction and concentration.

Important for context: that study examined real plants. Whether artificial plants trigger the same effect is not established by it. Bloomli therefore does not claim that an artificial plant on the desk measurably improves concentration. What it certainly does: it looks tidy permanently, in a spot where real plants often die.

And one more myth, one that actually speaks for real plants and still is not true: houseplants do not clean the air in a normal room to any meaningful degree. The famous NASA study from 1989 was carried out in small, airtight chambers; a 2019 analysis calculated that matching the effect of ordinary air exchange through windows would take ten to a thousand plants per square metre. Airing the room does what plants are credited with, whether real or artificial.

Why plants on the desk so often die

The desk is not a good spot for plants, and that is not down to the person sitting at it. It often stands in the corner of the room or with its back to the window so the screen does not reflect. That is exactly where light is lacking. Add to that heating air in winter and the weeks you spend on holiday or at a client’s.

If you want to keep a real plant on your desk, you need a bright spot and regularity. If you have neither, artificial plants are the solution for exactly that spot.

The video call is a topic of its own

Since video conferences became part of everyday life, the home-office background has been part of how you come across. What the camera shows is usually a shelf, a wall, a door. A plant in the frame makes the background calmer and tidier, without you having to sort your books.

Two practical tips on this:

• Not directly behind your head. A plant that seems to grow out of the back of your head is distracting. Offset to the side, at shoulder height or on the shelf, it acts as a frame.
• Larger, calm shapes. The camera reads a fern or a branch with large leaves as a surface. Delicate, small-leaved plants turn into noise under compression.

There is a simple reason artificial plants work well here: the camera cannot see the difference from real ones, and the background looks the same in every call, even after three weeks’ holiday.

Where greenery does the most in a home office

• On the desk itself: a small plant at the edge of your field of view. It should not be in the way, but briefly catch your eye when you look up.
• In the camera frame: see above: to the side, at medium height.
• In the dark corner: the spot behind the door or next to the filing cabinet where nothing grows. A larger artificial tree fills it.
• On the windowsill: a real plant can stand here too, as long as the sun does not shine on it all afternoon, because constant direct sunlight bleaches artificial flowers over time.

Less is more here

The home office is a workspace. Three to four spots of green are enough for a room of 12 to 15 square metres; more quickly looks like a conservatory. Calm colours (green, white, one muted accent) keep the room focused. A lush bouquet in strong colours belongs in the living room instead.

Two minutes of care

Every two to four weeks, dust the leaves with a soft cloth; a hairdryer on the cool setting, held at some distance, works too. Twice a year, a more thorough clean with lukewarm water, then leave to air-dry. That is all, and it fits into the break in which you wipe down your desk anyway.

Where real plants remain the better choice

• On a bright windowsill, if you sit at your desk every day anyway and watering is part of the routine.
• When looking after the plant is itself your small break in the working day.
• So far, evidence for the effect found in the Exeter study exists only for them.

Matching range

For the desk, small potted plants work well; for the shelf and the camera frame, hanging plants. An artificial tree fills the dark corner. How artificial plants work in shared offices is covered in the article Artificial plants in the office.