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Home » DIY & Crafts

How To Make Your Fake Plants Look Real

Modified: Aug 28, 2024 · Published: Mar 17, 2015 by Dannyelle Nicolle-Ramjist · This post may contain affiliate links · 4 Comments

How make your fake plants look real with simple tricks like adding real soil and stones and potting in a glass vase. These low maitence fakes will have people guessing, with out you having to worry about watering and fertilzing.

How to make your fake faux succulent plants look realistic.
Jump to:
  • Materials
  • 1. Get Good Fakes
  • 2. Use Real Soil
  • 3. Use Real Rocks
  • 4. Mix In Some Real Pants With the Faux Ones
  • More Inspiration

When I was getting ready for our Valentine’s Day Fiesta, I knew I wanted to have a centre piece of cactus and succulents in glass vases.  It’s simple, elegant, and on trend.  So I started searching for the plants at a good price.  

I knew I wanted to have at least nine vases running down the centre of the long table, but most of the cactus and succulents I found were around $5 each, which equals way too much for a party.  

But, I kept looking.  When a new dollar store opened in my area I found some faux succulents for one dollar each -perfect!

faux succulents, pulled out of their pots and styrofoam

They came in little plastic pots, so here’s how I transformed them into a something that looked real, and fooled my guests.

You could use these ideas with any faux plants to make them look more realistic.

Faux Succulents potted in real soil to look real

Materials

I bought some real cactus soil at the nursery, and some pretty rocks at the dollar store.  The glasses vases were some I already had, but if you needed them they’re from the dollar store.

  • real cactus soil
  • real rocks
  • glass vases
How To Make Your Faux Succulents Look Real by using real soil to pot them

1. Get Good Fakes

The best way to make your fake plants look more realistic is to start off with some good fakes. They're so many available today.

Here are my tips for finding great ones.

  • Make sure there's some color variation. Real plants have different shades of green and varation. Good fakes have this too.
  • Look for faux plants that feel real. Hard plastic leaves are a give away that they're fake.
  • Not too perfect. Real plants don't always look perfect. Great fakes have some varation in leaf size, and how open the buds might be.

2. Use Real Soil

I removed the faux plant from the pots, and then pulled the plastic plant off of the styrofoam base it was glued into.  Then I filled up the bottom of the vase with soil, and emerged the styrofoam base, making sure it was completely hidden by the soil.

You could do this in regluar pots for faux plants that you don't want in vases as well. Put them into beautiful pots and top the pots up with real soil.

Faux Succulents centrepiece diy

3. Use Real Rocks

Next, I inserted the plant back into the styrofoam, and added a layer of the rocks over the soil.  So easy.

How To Make a faux cactus centrepiece inexpensively


Using real soil and rocks really made the faux plant look much more realistic.  

4. Mix In Some Real Pants With the Faux Ones

I also included some real cactus.  I found some small ones at a local nursery for around two dollars each so I bought several to add to the mix.

This step really makes a difference. Your guests will see the real plants and just assume that the fake ones are also real. Top tip: make sure the real ones you mix in are low maintenance so that they keep looking great.

glass vase cactus centre piece for a party

It is a bit difficult to maneuver the real, and very prickly cactus into the tall, narrow vases.  

Here are my tips.  Add some soil to the vase first.  Then dig a small hole, so that it's coming up the sides a bit.  This way there is room in the middle for the plant.  

Hold the plant with some kitchen tongs and lower it into place.  Carefully add soil to the sides.  Use the end of a wooden spoon to compact the soil into place around the plant.  

And, if you do get some soil on the plant and it’s stuck in the thorns, use a straw to blow it out.

cactus centrepiece close up

Best part about this little project is that the finished project is very low maintenace, even the real ones.  I just need to make sure I tell my husband not to accidentally water the faux ones.

With real looking faux succulents, life really is a party!

More Inspiration

Love plants?  Check out our DIY Terrarium posts here.

DIY Terrarium

You also might like our Teacup Fairy Garden Village here.

Teacup Fairy Villiage Gardens -use teacups and teapots to create these whimiscal miniature fairy gardens with polymere clay houses and mushrooms.

More DIY and Craft Project Ideas

  • Everlasting gingerbread houses made from gingerbread salt dough.
    Easy Gingerbread Salt Dough Recipe for Houses and Ornaments
  • Cricut gingerbread decor felt gingerbread house banner and gingerbread canister with vinyl gingerbread houses
    DIY Gingerbread Decor Ideas To Make With Your Cricut
  • DIY paper Christmas cloche cricut
    DIY Paper Christmas Cloche Lantern with Free Cricut Pattern
  • DIY velvet acorn
    How To Make DIY Velvet Acorns

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. dnr says

    October 18, 2016 at 7:46 am

    Janet, love mixing the real and the faux. Sounds great.
    Dannyelle

  2. janet says

    October 15, 2016 at 6:18 pm

    I have several of the faux ones. I also have a real one in a clay pot. It looked so lonely all alone. So, I added a faux alone side. No one is the wiser!

  3. dnr says

    April 04, 2015 at 3:01 pm

    Thanks Carol, best of luck with the project.
    Dannyelle

  4. Carol says

    April 03, 2015 at 11:31 pm

    Amazing how real the faux succulents look I am definitely going to do this. This is awesome!
    Thanks for sharing.
    Carol P-K

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