Tag

nature

Keeping in touch with nature is in essence of our being. However, sometimes it can be quite hard or even impossible thing to achieve while living in concrete building apartments and urban areas that most of us call home. Here are some tips and interesting solutions on how to reconnect yourself with nature by redesigning your interior.

Plants


Embrace the nature in your home by surrounding yourself with plants. Bringing in as many plants as possible is a great start, they will instantly make your home atmosphere feel more natural. You can group them to make the place feel like a garden or even let them hang from the ceiling to give a more natural flow to your space.

Sunlight and air


Throw away your curtains. The quickest and cheapest way to feel immediate nature in your home is to let the sunlight and fresh air in. Sunlight and fresh air are good for our well-being, as they bring the balance between serotonin and melatonin levels in our body. Increased oxygen level will keep you well energized during the day as well.

Wood


Even though plastic, metal, rubber or some other fabricated materials can sometimes be cheaper or more practical solutions, tend to own wooden things, from wooden beams and hardwood floors to furniture and kitchen utensils, you can even mask you air conditioning system with wood.

Stone

Installing a stone wall in your living room can make a big difference when it comes to the overall feeling of natural atmosphere and biophilic mindset of your space. It’s astonishing how something so hard and cold can translate into such a warm and inviting interior feature made of a natural element.

Water fountain

Having a water fountain producing a smoothing and relaxing sound will have a strong impact on your daily activities and will make a great and interesting décor for your living room as well. Owning a Zen fountain will give your space an immediate organic and natural look.

Other natural elements

Placing seashells and pinecones is a great way to fill up empty spaces on shelves, coffee tables or even window sills. Use leather and cotton items as much as possible, seagrass will serve the purpose as well. These small and cheap details serve as excellent and easy on the eyes décor while embracing the presence of natural environment and coziness in your space.

Colors


A great alternative to surrounding your space with natural elements is using colors that will evoke a natural mindset. You can achieve that by using dark green or gold brown for a forest look or deep blue mixed with beige for a relaxing and calming ocean-and-sand-beach view. It’s well known that colors have great influence on our psychological state and these will have a satisfying and relaxing impact on you and your home atmosphere.

Art


Reduce the anxiety and stress level by hanging nature-inspired pictures on the walls. Looking at landscapes, animals, mountains, ocean or some other natural scenery and forms will give a strong feeling of tranquility and peacefulness to your home.

Natural shapes

Straight lines and right angles are not usually found in a natural environment, so try to avoid them as much as possible. Fuzzy rugs, cushions and pillows can soften up your space and bring more curvy and round look to your home.

Wallpapers


Yes, it’s fake but choosing a nature-inspired wallpaper will definitely do the job. Bring your walls to life by covering them with bamboo, ocean, landscape, tree or mountain wallpapers.
Biophilic design can reduce stress and anxiety, enhance creativity and bring tranquility and peacefulness to your home. As the world continues to urbanize, these qualities are becoming more and more important and are essential for our well-being. Introducing some of these small changes will embrace the nature in your home and it will have a strong psychological impact on you and your space.

Our planet has reached its boiling point because of our lack of care and concern for it. The situation is so bad that today we even have to think twice about how we are going grow plants, and that is why sustainable gardening has become so popular lately.

By taking such interest in your garden you are not only keeping you and your family healthier, but your planet in general, by conserving its resources.

You will also know exactly how it was cultivated and what you eat, as only then are you completely sure that it is chemical free.

What Does It Really Mean?

As sustainable is most commonly directly associated with eco-friendly, it implies gardening without causing harm to the Earth. As people started using too much pesticides, there was a necessity for a practice like this one.

However, that does not mean that they are not used at all, just in lesser quantities that are easier to keep under control.

What You Can Do

It might sound difficult to go green when this practice is in question, but sustainable gardening is actually quite manageable.

First rule is, do not use bulldogger if you can do it with your bare hands. It might be more difficult, and your hands will get dirty, but remember every time why you are doing it and who you are doing it for.

Secondly, use rainwater whenever you can, especially for watering your plants. You can collect it by setting up barrels in your yard, or even installing some more complex rainwater conservation systems. Also, be sure to use ground covers so that the water would not evaporate so quickly and you would not have to water it too often.

Another preferable technique is to compost, which is actually a way of recycling. By simply collecting leaves that have fallen this autumn in your garden and placing them in compost bins you are using more natural and organic material for your soil.

That way you do not have to spend money on fertilizers in specialized stores, that are not only expensive, but toxic for the soil too, if used in greater amounts.

Finally, think carefully about the plants that you want to grow. Do your homework, find out what fruit and vegetables you can actually grow in your area, because it is not just about planting what you wish to eat.

You need to know if there are appropriate conditions so that you would not have to use any unnecessary additives. Another thing you should definitely look up is which plant grows in which season, for the same reason that was previously mentioned. Also, check this cheatsheet for dummies, you dummy 🙂

Design

When you decide to have a sustainable garden, there are many other things to think about. You will need paths like aisles to approach those plants without stomping and destroying the soil around it.

Garden Path
image credit: wardslandscape.com

 

Those paths can be made out of old pieces of concrete that are leftover from some construction works you did on your house, and never knew where to throw them away.

Another thing is that no matter which part of the world you live in, there will always be natural elements like rain, snow or hail that will get in your way from time to time and that is why you will need to build some kind of protective construction. True sustainable gardener will always use recycled material for walls, windows and decks too.

For some vegetables you will need wooden trellis, but do not cut perfectly healthy three to make it, better collect branches that fall on their own. You know that there are always a lot of them just lying around, so do not let them annoy you, use them for good.

So no more trips to the farmer’s market – simply make some room in your garden, buy necessary seeds and start digging.

Help yourself, your family, country and planet by living green and properly caring about your plants, and at the same time your environment.

 

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