What is the Best Placement of Plants for Good Feng Shui?

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Here’s how to position your plants for good feng shui

If you want to enjoy the vibrant energy of plants in your home, as well as be sure that they are contributing to good feng shui of your home, it is helpful to know about the best feng shui positioning of plants.

You can decide the best positioning by the general placement of rooms in your home, as well as by a deeper level of feng shui as defined by the bagua (the feng shui energy map).

The first way of defining the best positioning of your good feng shui plants is quite easy. You will place the plants in the key areas of your home where they create a welcoming feeling, as well as receive plenty of natural light. The main entry, the living room, and the dining area are the most popular rooms to position your plants for good feng shui. The bedroom is considered to be the worst feng shui room to display big plants. 

If you want to go a bit deeper and place the plants strategically in order to strengthen the good feng shui energy in your home, then you would need to define the bagua, or the feng shui energy map of your home.

Read: Which Bagua Should You Use in Your Home?

Watch Video: How To Define the Classical Bagua of Your Home

Watch Video: How To Define the Western Bagua of Your Home

Once you have defined the bagua of your home, you will focus on displaying plants in the areas that love and need the Wood feng shui element. Why? Well, it’s simple — because plants represent the Wood feng shui element! When you bring a feng shui cure, or any decor item that represents a specific feng shui element into a bagua area that is nourished by this element, you strengthen the good energy in your whole home.

So the next step is to define the bagua areas in your home that either love or need the Wood element for their well-being. These areas are:

East

Southeast

South

It is also important to define the bagua areas that do not want a strong Wood element in their territory, so to speak, as this weakens their energy. It is wise to avoid placing big plants, or a big grouping of plants in these areas so as not to imbalance their energy. The bagua areas that do not like a strong Wood element are:

North

Northwest

West 

Southwest

Northeast

Center

Yes, it looks like there are more areas that do not want a strong Wood element than the areas that do want it. However, it is all a matter of the right proportion versus avoiding plants in these areas altogether.

For example, if you have a big areca palm and have the choice of placing it either in the Northeast area or in the East area, you would be wise to place it in the East. If you want to place a small plant or a small grouping of plants, then there is more leeway in terms of their right placement in your home. 

Why are there more areas that do not want a strong Wood element as compared to the ones that do want and love the Wood? These preferences are based on the interplay of the five feng shui elements, where each element has a specific relationship with the Wood element that is represented by plants.
 
While the East and the Southeast areas are governed by the Wood element and thus absolutely love it, and the South area is governed by the Fire element that absolutely loves the Wood, too (Fire is created by Wood in the productive cycle of the five elements), when it comes to the other three elements the relationship is different.
 
The Water element of the North area gets weaker when a strong Wood element decor is present in its space, and the same applies to the Earth and the Metal elements. Having many plants, or any other Wood feng shui element decor in these areas will tend to create an imbalanced quality of energy in your home.
 
As with most feng shui rules and guidelines, I encourage you to experiment and trust your senses when your home is asking for a different placement of plants. For example, you might already have a strong Wood element present in your East area with a brown color wall and a big wooden dining table, in which case adding more plants will just create too much Wood. In feng shui, too much of a good thing is not a good thing anymore!
 
In addition to the right placement of plants for good feng shui, be sure to choose the best pots for them in order to represent the needed feng shui elements. Here are the colors and materials of pots to go for and colors and materials to avoid in each bagua area. 
 
(If you are working with the Western/BTB bagua, replace the directions for the following bagua areas: East/Health & Family, Southeast/Money and Abundance, South/Fame and Reputation, Southwest/Love and Marriage, West/Children and Creativity, Northwest/Helpful People and Blessings, North/Career/Path in Life, Northeast/Spiritual Growth and Self-Cultivation.)
 
What to go for:
 
East – earthenware pots, yellow, beige sandy, blue and black colors
Southeast — same
South — wood pots, red, orange, purple, magenta, green and brown colors
Southwest — earthenware pots, yellow, beige sandy, red, orange, purple, magenta, strong yellow
West — metal and earthenware pots, white, gray, gold, silver colors, yellow, beige, sandy colors
Northwest — same
North — metal pots, blue, black, white, gray, gold, silver colors
Northeast — earthenware pots, yellow, beige sandy, red, orange, purple, magenta, strong yellow
 
What to avoid:
 
East — metal pots, white, gray, red, orange, magenta colors
Southeast — same
South — metal pots, blue, white, gray, and black colors
Southwest — metal pots, gray, white, blue and black colors
West — red, orange, magenta, blue and black colors
Northwest — same
North — wood pots, brown, green, red, orange, magenta colors
Northeast — metal pots, gray, white, blue and black colors
 

No matter where you choose to place your plants, be sure they get an adequate amount of love and care; this way they will quickly become not only part of your good feng shui decor but also part of your family. This is in addition to creating excellent feng shui in your space, of course!

Continue Reading:  What are the Best Feng Shui Plants for My Home?

Rodika Tchi

Rodika Tchi is a master feng shui consultant and author of two best-selling books on feng shui -- "The Healing Power of Smudging" (Simon and Schuster, 2017) and "Feng Shui for Healing" (Rockridge Press, 2019). Connect with Rodika on RodikaTchi.com