I'm a big fan of The Sill for its live houseplants, which have always arrived at my door healthy, safe, and well-packaged. Now for those of us who struggle to keep even a snake plant alive, the company has dipped a toe into fake and preserved plants, too.
The collection includes 14 fake plants and 3 preserved plants, which range in price from $75 (three faux Monstera leaves) to $940 (a 40" by 18" living wall). Among them are several plants that are infamously hard to maintain, like ficus trees and fiddle-leaf figs. If you lack either the light or the skill set to care for the real versions of these bad boys, now's your chance to enjoy their look without having to mourn their inevitable death.
The Sill sent me two products for this story: a faux angel wings begonia and a preserved fern kokedama. In classic Sill form, the begonia (be-faux-nia?) was wrapped carefully in bubble wrap and and placed inside a cardboard carton to maintain its shape inside the box. The kokedama shipped from a separate vendor, Artisan Moss, but it was still painstakingly bubble-wrapped. Both arrived in good shape, with no visible nicks or tears.
The faux plant
First, the begonia. As The Sill points out on its product page, real angel wings begonias can be finicky, especially if your home doesn't have consistent bright light. They're also poisonous to pets, so there's a real market for a faux option. Luckily, this particular fake begonia does indeed look like a real begonia, with long, winglike leaves and bright, painted-on spots. It also comes in one of The Sill's trendy ceramic planters, which adds to its aesthetic appeal.
That said, this plant is still a fake plant. The Sill hasn't reinvented what a fake plant looks like here; the leaves don't gleam like real leaves and the stems are visibly, obviously plastic. The big aesthetic issue, one The Sill might have been able to avoid, is that the faux plant, which is attached to a big chunk of faux dirt, doesn't quite fit in the planter — there's a big ring of space around the perimeter, which means the plant sits a little crookedly.
At $82 — not cheap! — a lot of what you're paying for here is the planter. If you can swing it, you might be better off buying one of The Sill's real plants, most of which are cheaper. But for the pet owners and black thumbs out there, the faux begonia is a fine option.
The preserved plant
Kokedama, which literally means "moss ball," is a Japanese art form in which a small plant (in this case, a fern) is grown on a moss-covered ball of soil. The Sill's fern kokedama is preserved, so you don't need to mist it like you would a living version.
As The Sill warns on its website, the kokedama had a slightly musty smell right out of the box — nothing unpleasant, but definitely noticeable. After a week, it had mostly dissipated, but if it had hung around for a while longer I don't think I would've cared.
I hung my kokedama in my living room. (It comes ready to hang, which is convenient.) So far it has enjoyed a mostly incident-free existence. It did shed a bit during the first few days, which I chalk up to the moss getting loosened a bit during the shipping process, but otherwise looks great. The moss ball is a slightly yellower shade of green than the fern, but a small difference in color is standard for the genre.
The preserved fern costs $75, which is definitely an investment. You're paying for craftsmanship here, though it's worth noting that Artisan Moss (The Sill's vendor) sells preserved pine fern and grassy fern kokedama for just $57 a pop, as well as a bear grass version for $67.50. You simply have to buy them through Artisan Moss's website instead.
So, are they worth it?
Both products are pretty expensive, though it's easier to justify the price of the kokedama than that of the faux begonia.
Living kokedama can be difficult to keep healthy, and the preserved version provides the exact same look with no upkeep necessary. The begonia, on the other hand, is just a regular faux plant in a beautiful planter. In the right home, it'll certainly provide some decorative flexibility — you won't have to worry about placing it near a window or out of reach of your cat, for example — but there are more affordable faux plants out there.
And if you can swing a regular begonia, even better. Just buckle up for some caretaking.
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