A well-decorated front door can make or break the first impression that guests have of your humble abode. In feng shui, the front door is just as important, and the ancient practice’s guiding principles provide plenty of methods for improving your front door’s energy-drawing performance with plants! Here we’ll take you through the fundamental theory and best practices that surround the role of the front door in feng shui and 11 of the best plant types to consider positioning near the entranceway of your home.
- The Best Plants for the Front Door in Feng Shui
- About the Front Door in Feng Shui
- The Best Color for Your Front Door According to Feng Shui
- The Role of Plants and the Front Door in Feng Shui
- The 11 Best Plants for the Front Door in Feng Shui:
- Types of Plants to Avoid Locating Near the Front Door in Feng Shui
- Invite Positive Energy Into Your Home With Front Door Plants
- Feng Shui Plants for the Front Door FAQ:
The Best Plants for the Front Door in Feng Shui
The best plants for the front door in feng shui are those with soft, rounded, heart-shaped, or broad leaves that will draw in positive, auspicious energy. Some of the most popular front door feng shui plants include money trees, areca palms, jade plants, fruit trees, ferns, geraniums, and chrysanthemums.
About the Front Door in Feng Shui
Feng shui equates the front door to the mouth of the home. Outward, it’s the face of your house and represents the way you look to the outside world. Inward, it’s the entry point from which all good and/or bad energy (qi) flows into the house.
The front door also sets the tone for the way in which opportunities come into your life. Additionally, it provides a transitional space between the outside world of alertness and the inside world of calm.
In feng shui, the way you set up and decorate your front door and entryway can affect the type of energy you invite into your home and life.
Feng Shui Guidelines for the Front Door
- In feng shui, the front door always refers to the architectural front door of the home. It does not refer to a side door or back door – even if you use these entry points more often.
- The front door should always open inwards and never outwards to welcome energy by pulling it into the home, rather than pushing it away, with the motion of the door.
- The entryway should not be cramped or cluttered. To allow energy to flow properly into the home, make sure your front door and entryway are clean and free from the clutter that can easily accumulate throughout daily life (shoes, mail, bags, and outerwear).
- The front door and entryway should also be well lit. In feng shui, light represents the fire element. The fire element is responsible for fame, reputation, and how you’re recognized. This is extremely important at the place in your home where you greet visitors.
- Everything should be grand, tidy, and in working order. For the front door to function properly in life and feng shui, it should be grand and everything should function properly. Check that your hardware (inside and outside) works smoothly without sticking, make sure your doorbell is easy to find and rings as it should, keep the walkway up to your door tidy, and ensure a pleasant experience for any visitors as they approach your home.
The Best Color for Your Front Door According to Feng Shui
According to feng shui principles, the best color for a front door depends on the direction the door faces. In feng shui, the cardinal directions are associated with elements that are also associated with colors. Selecting the right color for your front door’s facing direction will help balance the energy flowing into your home.
North-Facing Door
- Water
- Colors: blue, gray, black, or white
- Avoid yellow, brown, green, orange, purple, deep pink, and red
East-Facing Door
- Wood
- Colors: brown, green, or other earth tones
- Avoid yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, white, and gray
South-Facing Door
- Fire
- Colors: red, orange, yellow, pink, and purple
- Avoid earth tones, blue, and black
West-Facing Door
- Metal
- Colors: gray, white, light brown, beige, and light yellow
- Avoid black, blue, purple, deep pink, red, orange, and bright yellow
The Role of Plants and the Front Door in Feng Shui
Feng shui plants not only help direct energy toward your home, but they also can encourage specific types of energy. Depending on the type of plant you place near your front door, it might represent happiness, luck or good fortune, wealth, protection, longevity, purity, abundance, or endurance.
Placement of Plants Inside and Outside the Front Door
Lots of people automatically decorate their front doors by placing potted plants on either side of the door, and this natural decorating instinct is spot on with the practices of feng shui. Placing plants near the front door can invite different types of energies into the home, depending on the type of plants you select or the colors of their flowers. Additionally, placing plants on either side of the front door can help slow the flow of energy into the home, creating a softer, more inviting atmosphere.
You can place plants indoors near the entryway, too. Just be careful that you don’t block the flow of energy coming into the house by blocking the entryway and creating clutter. Indoor plants are perfect for directing energy through your home. If your front door opens directly onto a stairway or another door, use a plant to direct energy to the left or right of the stairs and into your home.
Front Door Feng Shui Plant Sizes
The larger the plant, the more powerful its energy-drawing presence will be.
Plants should generally be kept in proportion to the home’s front door and entryway. If you have a grand entrance, then choose large plants to draw an appropriate amount of energy toward your home. If your front door is more demure, then keep your plant profiles in sync with the quiet energy of your home.
The 11 Best Plants for the Front Door in Feng Shui:
Here you’ll find 11 of the best plant types to consider placing at your front door according to feng shui best practices. We’ve included essential tips and considerations on where to position and care instructions for each.
1. Areca Palm
About:
The areca palm is an attractive, easy-to-grow outdoor or indoor plant offering lots of uses and benefits. It features broad swaths of soft, green palm fronds, and is considered a lucky plant in feng shui tradition.
| Feng Shui Benefits: | Areca attracts positive energy and breaks up or pushes away negativity while attracting wealth, prosperity, and peace to a home. |
| Where to Position: | Outside or inside the front door in a location with enough space to accommodate its wide-spreading foliage. |
| Care Considerations: | Indoor areca palm plants are low-maintenance and simply like to have filtered sunlight and slightly moist soil. They can grow outdoors in zones 10 and 11 year-round. |
2. Umbrella Plant (Schefflera)
About:
The Schefflera (commonly called the umbrella plant) has umbrella-shaped leaves that look a little bit like hands with too many fingers. It’s this plant’s sheltering shape that lends it its protective powers in feng shui.
| Feng Shui Benefits: | Protection, deflection of negativity, wealth, and positive energy attraction. |
| Where to Position: | Schefflera plants are a perfect choice for inside or outside the front door of the house. Place them in this auspicious location for protection and to draw prosperity into your home. |
| Care Considerations: | Requires bright, indirect light, plenty of water, and high humidity |
3. Citrus Trees
About:
Whether you plant lime, lemon, orange, or a citrus tree that bears another type of sweet fruit, you will draw positive energy that brings wealth to your home.
| Feng Shui Benefits: | Prosperity and happiness. |
| Where to Position: | Citrus trees bring wealth in the southeast. Plant citrus trees on either side of your front door, but never plant a tree in front of the door as this can block the energy flow. |
| Care Considerations: | To bear fruit and draw in the most energy, citrus trees need at least 6 to 8 hours of bright, direct sunlight every day. |
4. Money Tree
About:
The money tree symbolizes the balance between the five elements of feng shui, making it a particularly positive choice for drawing balanced energy into your home.
| Feng Shui Benefits: | Wealth, money, and abundance. |
| Where to Position: | For the best results, position a money tree in the southeast corner of the entryway. |
| Care Considerations: | Requires bright, filtered light and moderately moist (never soggy) soil. |
5. Lucky Bamboo
About:
With its straight, skinny, upward growth pattern lucky bamboo is one of the most auspicious plants in feng shui.
| Feng Shui Benefits: | Good luck, block negativity and attracts positive energy. |
| Where to Position: | Place an arrangement of an auspicious number of lucky bamboo stalks anywhere near your entryway. |
| Care Considerations: | Lucky bamboo is low-maintenance and easy to grow. Keep the water fresh in soilless arrangements. |
6. Jade Plants
About:
Jade plants are easy to care for, long-living, and have coin-shaped leaves that, according to feng shui principles, will attract positive energy that helps build wealth.
| Feng Shui Benefits: | Money, luck, prosperity, and wealth. |
| Where to Position: | These small plants are perfect for adorning a front door with limited space. |
| Care Considerations: | Jade plants need well-draining soil that’s watered when dry or nearly dry in addition to moderate temperatures at least 4 hours of direct sunlight daily. |
7. Pothos Plants
About:
Pothos plants are incredibly low-maintenance and easy to grow, which makes them a perfect choice for a feng shui enthusiast who is a beginner at caring for plants. Additionally, they can survive in a variety of light conditions which makes them perfect for brightening darker spaces.
| Feng Shui Benefits: | Attracts positive energy, blocks negative energy, and good luck. |
| Where to Position: | Hang in planters on either side of the front door or place them in your entryway. |
| Care Considerations: | Water regularly. Pothos plants will thrive in a variety of light conditions. |
8. Fig Trees
About:
Since the front of the home draws in energy, choose plants wisely – especially when they’re as large as a tree because they will draw in even more energy. Fig trees are an auspicious choice for the front of the home.
| Feng Shui Benefits: | Affluence, luck, and favorable work. |
| Where to Position: | Fig trees can be planted in the yard in front of your home. |
| Care Considerations: | Fig trees require full sunlight in the summer for 6 to 8 hours each day and regular fertilization. In cooler climates, move the tree indoors during the fall and winter. |
9. Ferns
About:
Ferns have lush, green fronds that bring a softness and calming energy to any space. In addition to being a positive addition to a feng shui space, they’re also experts at purifying the air.
| Feng Shui Benefits: | Blocks negative energy and draws in positivity. |
| Where to Position: | Position ferns outside your front door, just inside the front door, or hang them up in any dark corners. |
| Care Considerations: | Ferns require moderate temperatures and high humidity. |
10. Geraniums
About:
Geraniums are a popular summer staple and can be found in garden centers everywhere. They have lovely clusters of blossoms that look striking against their auspiciously shaped leaves.
| Feng Shui Benefits: | Wealth, abundance, fame, and good luck. |
| Where to Position: | Place red or pink geraniums next to a south-facing front door, or white geraniums next to a west or north-facing door. |
| Care Considerations: | Geraniums like to receive plenty of bright sunlight. Fertilize regularly during the growing season to encourage blooms. |
11. Chrysanthemums
About:
Chrysanthemums have round-shaped blossoms that are considered lucky in feng shui. They come in a huge variety of colors and sizes. Although chrysanthemums are most popular during the fall months, you can grow them throughout the year.
| Feng Shui Benefits: | Abundance, prosperity, and good luck. |
| Where to Position: | Place them on either side of your front door and choose a color that’s considered auspicious for the cardinal direction your door faces. |
| Care Considerations: | Provide chrysanthemums with even moisture and regular fertilizing to promote blooms. |
Types of Plants to Avoid Locating Near the Front Door in Feng Shui
To avoid drawing negative or harmful energy toward your home’s entry point, avoid placing spiky, sharp, thorny, or pointy plants near your doorway (or anywhere in or around your home for that matter). Yes, that includes your prized rose bushes, too!
Although they have their own beauty, these types of plants that can cause physical harm or look like they could cause physical harm should be avoided when decorating your home because they can draw in negative energy. Additionally, dead, sick, or dying plants can also draw in negative energy.
To generate positive feng shui energy, avoid thorns and brambles and, instead, focus on incorporating healthy plants with soft, broad, rounded, or heart-shaped leaves.
Invite Positive Energy Into Your Home With Front Door Plants
When selecting plants to attract positive energy into your home, remember the principles of feng shui, keeping in mind which types of plants will attract positive energy and which will attract negative energy. Additionally, keep in mind the space, the light, and the climate to ensure your plants stay healthy and continue drawing in positive energy.
Feng Shui Plants for the Front Door FAQ:
How is the front door defined in feng shui?Â
In feng shui, the front door always refers to the architectural front door of the home. It does not refer to a side door or back door – even if you use these entry points more often.
What color front door is lucky?
According to feng shui principles, the best color for a front door depends on the direction the door faces. North-Facing doors are best served with blue, gray, black, or white colors; East Facing: brown, green, or other earth tones; South-facing: red, orange, yellow, pink, and purple; West-facing: gray, white, light brown, beige, and light yellow.
How do I feng shui my front door?
In feng shui, the way you set up and decorate your front door and entryway can affect the type of energy you invite into your home and life. The front door should always open inwards and never outwards and should never be cramped or cluttered. The front door and entryway should also be well lit.
Which plant is best in front of the house?
The best plants for the front door in feng shui are those with soft, rounded, heart-shaped, or broad leaves that will draw in positive, auspicious energy. Some of the most popular front door feng shui plants include money trees, areca palms, jade plants, fruit trees, ferns, geraniums, and chrysanthemums.
What plants should I avoid placing near the front door?Â
To avoid drawing negative or harmful energy toward your home’s entry point, avoid placing spiky, sharp, thorny, or pointy plants near your doorway.
Feng Shui Plants and The Home
For more, see our essential guides to the best Feng Shui plants for living rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, bedrooms, hallways, balconies, offices, desks, and those that attract wealth, prosperity, and luck.
Andrew is the Editorial Director at Petal Republic. He holds a BSc degree in Plant Sciences and has trained professionally at leading floristry schools in London and Paris. In amongst overseeing a global editorial team, Andrew's a passionate content creator around all things flowers, floral design, gardening, and houseplants.
Comments are closed.