By Josette Keelor — Daily Staff Writer

Decorating a room, whether in your home or office, can take a lot of thought and work, especially when it comes to sifting through the options. In your hours of looking at fabric designs and paint samples, remember to add indoor plants to your list.

Chuck Hepner, owner of Valley Flower Shop and Greenhouse Inc., in Woodstock, explains that indoor plants have many uses in decorating any room in your house.

"Bringing nature inside or softening a room," he says are reasons to add "living" art to your house. Plants also succeed in "enriching the air, adding oxygen to the air," says Hepner. Plants breathe in the carbon dioxide that people exhale, changing it back into oxygen that can benefit anyone in your house.

The Web site www.greendesign.com says that other plants such as Bamboo Palm and Madonna Lilies can also clean indoor air by reducing the level of airborne volatile organic compounds like benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene.

Although any green plant could serve as your very own oxygen producing machine, you should still do your homework when deciding which variety to buy for your house. Just like with anything else you bring into the room, consider the size and scale of the plant to make sure that it will enhance the room, rather than hide other decorations or get lost in a corner.

Patricia Jackson, owner of Interiors by Patricia Jackson in Winchester, says to give thought to the color of the flowers as well as the leaves of your plant.

Ivy, she says, can have white, yellow and green designs on its leaves, which will affect how it looks next to furniture or wallpaper in the room it occupies.

"It has a lot of movement ... it's busy," she says. "Make sure the texture of the plant is not too busy for the room."

Janie Nichols, owner of M.J. Interiors in Winchester, elaborates on the idea, saying, "A lot of color would get busy." She says not to combine too many different flowering plants in one room, if the colors will clash with each other.

"I think every room should have a vase of fresh flowers ... to complement a room," she says. Despite her affinity for flowers, she feels that green plants also enhance a room and add color.

If you are selective in your search for what you want, Jackson says that you can find the color of greenery that you need to blend well with its surroundings.

The theme of your room will also determine the type of plant that you buy, says Nichols. For instance, you would not want to use ivy in a European or Asian style room, she says, or a cactus in a room that does not have a southwestern theme.

"I think you really need to match the plant to the house," she says. Asian plants are a choice that she feels will suit a lot of different styles and people. The "happy plants," as she calls them, are easy to maintain and actually improve people's moods, she says.

Scent is another aspect of indoor plants that Jackson says to consider. Plants offering flowers have their own scent, but even plants that do not have a scent will give off an essence, she says.

If you want your plants to last awhile, Hepner suggests adorning your living room with peace lilies or plants from the philodendron family, which flourish in low light and are fairly easy to grow.

Jackson agrees that philodendrons are good indoor plants to start with, especially if you do not have a green thumb.

These tropical plants, which are known more for their foliage than for their flowers, do need some bright light to grow, but Hepner says that they can obtain that from interior light if necessary.

Blooming plants can also do well indoors, but they will not last all year. If you want a plant that is in it for the long haul, a green plant is the way to go, Hepner says.

In order to keep your indoor plants healthy, make sure that you check the soil often. Hepner suggests thoroughly watering the plants and then allowing the soil to dry slightly. You do not want the soil to dry out too much, but you also do not want a pool of water in the flower pot. How often you water each plant will depend on the amount of sun it is receiving, how hot the weather is and how quickly the plant is growing.

A good temperature for indoor plants is in the low 60s and 70s, Hepner says. If the temperature is higher than that, you can still remedy the situation by raising the humidity indoors. If the air is too dry, the plants will not do well.

Another option, if you are not an experienced gardener, is to buy silk or other artificial plants.

Jackson recommends silk plants for their appearance.

"There are some beautiful silk plants," Nichols agrees, though she says to choose the right silk plant, so that it will match the rest of the room.

There are a lot of life-like artificial plants on the market, which could beautify your house just as well as live plants, though Jackson does prefer the real thing.

"They actually do bring life to the surroundings," she says of live plants, a feature that might encourage people to buy them instead of their artificial counterparts.

Although they take some work to maintain, plants can offer a lot of beauty and peacefulness, in a way that other decorations might not. Hepner feels that it is the fact that they are living that provides this environment.

"Being that they're living and growing," he says, and that you are "seeing something change and grow," will help you keep nature in your house year-round.

*Contact Josette Keelor at jkeelor@nvdaily.com