Garnish With Greens: Decorate Your Dinner Table With Plants

This spring, bring your dinner table to life. While floral centerpieces make for classic centerpieces, there are lots of fun, creative ways to incorporate plants that are both beautiful and functional. Use them as:

Centerpieces

Whether you’re throwing a small Sunday brunch or a more extravagant event, you can dress it up with beautiful centerpieces made from plants. For a circular or square table, put a larger plant in the middle. (Make sure it’s not so high that you can’t see who is across from you). On a long table, make a row of smaller plants in jars or pots in a row down the middle of the table, like how you might display candles. For a brunch, use simple plant arrangements like our Garden-in-a-Jar herbs or small pots. For more elegant dinner parties, place succulents in glass jars or bowls on the table, or even have them hang from the ceiling.    

Place settings

For a more intimate event, go the extra mile and add a personalized plant in small pots or jars  for each place setting. Affix the guests’ names to a plant label or popsicle stick sticking out of the dirt. Or paint the pots with chalkboard paint and write their name right on the pot. This way, you can erase the names for next time and use them again, and you can also write the names of the plants with chalk. Go one step further and gift it: share the love and send your guests home with their own houseplant. Attach instructions for how to care for their new plant and your guests are on their way to a green thumb and a garden.

 

Celebration of ingredients

Use the containers from dinner to hold the plants. Reuse old cans and jars from your ingredient lists. If you’re serving something with tomato sauce, use a large can from the crushed tomatoes and put your plant inside for a fun, rustic look. Try the same thing for large jars of salsa or pickles, cans of coffee, and other bulk-sized ingredients. It’s fun to go with the dinner theme and match your meal, plus it’s recycling.

Part of the meal

If you’re serving something that would benefit from being topped with fresh herbs, let guests have a real “garden to table” experience by letting them pick some from your plants. Serving pasta? Your guests can grab some basil to put on top. Hosting taco night? Let them throw some fresh cilantro in. Or, top dessert with some fresh mint. It’s fun to have an interactive meal using the plants on the table.