Green up your grey February

A MORGONTID glass dome over a tiny plant set in a tea mug placed in a shallow window sill, a wintery landscape behind it.

Regardless of how far spring has come outside, it’s time to invite it inside. Here we show a range of tips on how to transform your home with easy green changes.

Row of white cabinets against a grey wall. On top of them are books, decorations, a vase with a long twig with green shoots.

Put the seasons in fast forward

If you have trees or plants outside to prune, save a cut off branch and bring it inside. Set in water it becomes a preview of spring, and a thing of beauty instead of going to waste.

Living room interior – table, chairs, bookcases – with a man pruning a plant, using scissors to cut off sprawling twigs.

Time to shed the winter layers

Give your winter-tired indoor plants a revitalising trim. Snip off sprawling or dead twigs – but don’t throw them away just yet (keep reading).

Low living-room bookcase on top of which is arranged cuttings set in individual vases grouped on a SNUDDA lazy Susan.

A still life full of life

Trimmed parts can easily get a second life in a glass of water. Combine and gather them to create a mini garden. Set on a lazy Susan, you can tailor both look and light.

“Planting virtually comes with satisfaction guaranteed. There are just so many beautiful ways you can use it. Find what’s right for you. Whether you prefer a few seedlings or full jungle, or even fake plants, you can’t go wrong.”

Kristina Pospelova, IKEA interior designer

Corner of a living room with a group of sprawling plants. A large MONSTRERA plant is set in a IKEA PS FEJÖ wheeled plant pot.

Rearrange your green furniture

Like seating, tables and shelves, plants are part of your furniture. Adding to or rearranging them – extra easy with wheeled plant pots – can mean just as much for a room, not least to add a refreshing sense of spring.

A gardening station set up on a kitchen table. On a SKVALLRA desk pad lie a potless plant in its soil and plant-pot shards.

Plant pots aplenty

Growing plants means changing pots over time. If you have an old terracotta one that’s broken or unneeded, crush it and blend it with potting soil to improve drainage (and help plants grow even bigger).

A motley selection of plants in decorative pots grouped on a kitchen worktop and adjacent, sunlit windowsill.

The great mismatch

Mixing and matching is fine – but a good mismatch can be even better. Grouping materials, shapes and colours has a way of creating a unique expression. Then, all you need is to add some spring light.

See all flower pots & planters

Gardening station in a kitchen: seedlings planted in paper cups, a TOMAT spray bottle and a SOCKER greenhouse on the side.

Grow a garden from scratch

Naturally, plants aren’t just something to behold. Make it an activity with a few paper cups and some potting soil, and nurture a new generation from the seed up.

A SOCKER miniature greenhouse placed in a windowsill. A woman waters the seedlings within with a VATTENKRASSE watering can.

Give the newcomers a window seat

February and March is a great time to sow. Once you have seeds sprouting, there will likely be visible progress for months to come. Also, it’s a drama that everyone in the family can take part in.

Living room table arranged for a plant-based art session: MÅLA paint, drawing paper and a partly withered MONSTRERA leaf.

Nature is art

Even withered leaves (or simply failed gardening) can get a new lease on life – as models. Let an artist in the family have a go at reproducing it, and chances are it will come out as good as new.

Living room corner where a wall shelf behind a sofa holds books, decorations and a framed drawing of a MONSTRERA leaf.

Hang your evergreens on the wall

While gardening may not be for everyone, even the sense of a plant – or, in this case, its image – can be enough to raise the mood (follow link to read more).

We love to see our customers get creative with our products. Go for it! But please note that altering or modifying IKEA products so they can no longer be re-sold or used for their original purpose, means the IKEA commercial guarantees and your right to return the products will be lost.

Made by

Interior designer: Kristina Pospelova
Photographer: Åsa Haleby
Writer: Henrik Annemark