Office Garden Art
by Ruby Bayan
Gardening has long been one of the most popular hobbies. Tending to plants has also been proven to improve health because it helps reduce stress. But aside from these, gardening is also an expression -- an art -- like painting a canvass of earth with awe-inspiring strokes of greens and blooms.
Tending to ornamental plants becomes most fulfilling when the flora have acclimatized to their surroundings -- their branches and tendrils spread harmoniously among each other, their patches of blossoms unfurled in perfect synchronicity.
Indoors and in the office scenario, ornamental container garden art is also possible. The most common means of garden expression is through a unique and personal preference in decorative planters -- whether they match the office furniture or not.
A taste for texture is evident in wicker baskets, stucco jars, and matte clay pots. Fondness for glitter and shine is expressed in brass, gold, or silver planters, while an impressionistic or whimsical touch is betrayed by self-painted terra cotta pots of dazzling colors and sizes.
But beyond the exhibition of specially-chosen pots and planters, office garden art can be conceived by choosing a creative collection of plants. A group of non-flowering greens can be planted to resemble a mini-corner-of-the-forest, with tall palms in the center, sets of tri-colors all around, and trailing plants along the edges to gently flow down the sides.
A collection of flowering indoor plants, anticipated to bloom simultaneously, can also be meticulously gathered in one planter to create a magnificent array of colorful clusters. Planting together different colors of one type of plant, like bulbs, petunias, verbenas, marigolds, or daisies, can produce a spectacular spread of multi-colored flowers set in a particular pattern.
Cacti, a favorite among office plants, have also been a gardener's natural easel. Different varieties can be "attached" to each other to form exotic cactus creations. If eccentricity is the indoor gardener's thing, cactus plants and flowers can be the medium.
Gardening doesn't have to be just about digging dirt and watching grass grow. It doesn't even have to be just about watering, fertilizing, and cutting flowers for the centerpiece. Gardening at its best can be about articulation, creativity, and a discriminating eye for beauty -- especially at the workplace.
[First published by Windowbox.com.]
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