The Best Artificial Plants in Australia

The fastest way to make a rented flat or a just-settled first home look finished is a big green thing in the corner. The slow way is buying a real fiddle leaf fig, discovering your living room gets two hours of weak southern light, and watching it drop leaves until it is a stick in a pot. Artificial plants skip that entire arc.

They also carry a reputation problem, and it is half deserved. The difference between a faux olive tree guests touch to check and one that reads as fake from the doorway comes down to three things: the leaf material, the pot it sits in, and whether you bothered to shape it after unboxing. This guide covers seven artificial plants on Amazon Australia, from a 213 cm floor tree down to a pair of 24 cm shelf plants. Every price, rating and measurement was pulled from the live Australian listing, and the flaws sections come from what Australian buyers actually complained about.

What are the best artificial plants in Australia right now?

If you want one answer: the FEELEAD 7ft Artificial Olive Tree at $189.99 is the pick that changes a room. It is 213 cm of bendable silk foliage on a textured trunk in a weighted planter, it holds 4.6 stars across 166 ratings, and Australian reviewers keep using the word elegant rather than the word fake. It is also by some distance the priciest thing here, so it only makes sense if you have an empty corner worth filling.

Spending less than half that, the TonJin Artificial Bird of Paradise Palm at $79.90 gives you 160 cm of tropical height with ten detachable leaves you position yourself, in a pot weighted with cement so a toddler cannot tip it. And if you just want greenery on a shelf without thinking about it, the Coferset 2 Pack Eucalyptus is the cheapest pick in this guide and by far the most reviewed. Two plants start from $20.48, with 4,914 ratings behind a 4.6 star average.

How do the three headline picks compare?

The three teasers below sit at genuinely different jobs rather than different price tiers of the same job. One fills a corner, one fills a gap beside a sofa or a bed, one fills a bathroom shelf. Read the height column first, because height is what decides whether a plant looks deliberate or looks lost.

Prices move on Amazon Australia, sometimes weekly, so treat every figure in this guide as a from-price and check the listing before you commit. All seven picks were in stock at the time of writing.

How did NestPath choose these artificial plants?

NestPath aggregates rather than photographs. We pull the live Australian Amazon listing for each candidate, confirm brand, price, rating and review count from that listing, read the Australian reviews rather than the global ones, and drop anything that fails these screens:

• Fewer than three reviews. Several good-looking UV-rated outdoor ferns and a 190 cm fiddle leaf fig were cut here. A 5.0 star rating from one buyer tells you nothing.
• No visible price. Two well-reviewed products, including a faux bamboo with 740 ratings, had no live price on the Australian listing. We will not guess at a number.
• Price outliers. A listing at double the going rate for its size is usually a reseller, and the buyer wears the difference.
• Duplicate parents. A 150 cm and a 180 cm version of the same tree are one product, not two. Each pick below is a distinct parent listing.

Where Australian reviewers repeatedly flagged the same problem, it is written into the flaws section rather than buried. Two picks below carry Australian one-star reviews, and you will read what they said.

Best artificial plant for an empty living room corner

The FEELEAD 7ft Artificial Olive Tree is the one to buy when the room has a hole in it. At 213 cm tall and 85 cm across, this is furniture-scale rather than decoration-scale, and it lands in a 23 cm planter that comes in the box, so there is no second purchase before it can stand up. It weighs 10 kg, which is a genuine feature: light artificial trees wobble, and wobble is what makes them read as fake.

The foliage is faux silk on branches with internal metal wire, so you can bend individual limbs rather than accepting the packed shape. This matters more than the spec sheet suggests. A real olive tree is asymmetric and slightly sparse near the trunk, and the commonest faux-tree mistake is leaving every branch fanned forward. Ten minutes of pulling branches back and sideways is the whole difference.

At 4.6 stars from 166 ratings it is the joint highest rated of the three headline picks alongside the Coferset eucalyptus. One Australian buyer put it in a clinic waiting room and described the space as feeling calm; another noted it was easy to assemble, consistent with the listing claim that it ships pre-assembled and needs only shaping. Buy it for a corner beside a sofa, the end of a hallway, or the dead space next to a television unit. Not for a small bedroom, where 213 cm will loom.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Price is the obvious one. This is the most expensive pick here by more than double, and from $189.99 you are paying for scale rather than a realism breakthrough. The listing calls the foliage fade resistant rather than fade proof and warns against long periods in direct strong sunlight, which is a real constraint in an Australian north-facing room. And 10 kg with 85 cm of spread is awkward to move, so decide where it lives before you unbox it.

Best artificial plant for tropical height without the price

The TonJin Artificial Bird of Paradise Palm starts from $79.90 and stands 160 cm tall, which makes it the cheapest way into genuine floor-plant height here. It ships as a trunk plus ten separate leaves that you insert yourself, and while that sounds like a chore, it is the reason this one can be made to look convincing: you choose how many leaves go on, at what angle, and how far apart.

The pot is the underrated part: hard PP with cement poured inside, so the whole thing weighs 3 kg and sits low. The listing frames that as stopping children and pets knocking it over, and in a small flat with a dog it is the reason the plant survives.

It holds 4.5 stars from 28 Australian ratings, the smallest review base of any pick here and worth naming plainly. The reviews are consistent: one buyer wrote that they kept killing indoor plants and this looked realistic enough; another called it good quality, sturdy, tall and customisable and mentioned buying a decorative pot to finish it. A third praised the freedom to choose leaf count and angle while admitting they were still working out the best arrangement. The plant rewards effort and punishes impatience. The leaves are plastic over steel wire, described as waterproof and weather resistant, though the listing is categorised indoor: treat a covered balcony as reasonable and full exposure as out of scope.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Twenty-eight ratings is thin. The most useful critical review is a four-star that spells out the compromise: up close every leaf is identical down to the notches, and the stems take real force to bend. Australian buyers noted it needs re-shaping straight out of the box, and one advised waiting for a sale. The 18 cm base is narrow against 160 cm of height, so on carpet near a walkway it wants a heavier outer pot.

Best budget artificial plants for shelves and bathrooms

The Coferset 2 Pack Eucalyptus is the cheapest pick in this guide, and it is also the most reviewed artificial plant here by a wide margin. Two plants start from $20.48, and there are 4,914 ratings behind the 4.6 star average. That combination is rare and it is the main reason it earns a place.

Each plant stands 24 cm tall and 15 cm wide in a small grey paper pulp pot roughly 7.6 cm tall and across. That is deliberately modest. These are not meant to be noticed alone; they sit on a bathroom vanity, a floating shelf or a kitchen windowsill and stop the surface looking bare, and having two lets you balance a shelf at both ends. Australian reviews are warm and unfussy: one called them a perfect size for a bathroom caddy, another said they bring colour and texture without the mess or the watering. The listing is unusually direct about the limitation, though. Rain or soaking cracks the pulp pot, so in a bathroom that means the vanity, not the shower ledge.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Two Australian reviewers independently said they arrive smaller than expected, and one worked out why: the stated 24 cm runs from the base of the pot to the tallest sprig, not the foliage height. A three-star reviewer noted the Kmart equivalent is larger and cheaper, which is fair if you have one nearby. As at any price this low, the branches arrive compressed and need spreading by hand.

Best small artificial plant from an Australian brand

Kurrajong Farmhouse is an Australian-owned business that started in 2012 as a candle and homewares brand and moved into faux plants in 2019, and their 20 cm potted plant is the pick for anyone who wants a small plant that does not feel disposable. It starts from $39.90, several times what a supermarket equivalent costs, and the reason sits in your hand: a weighted concrete pot with the faux succulent set in real black pebbles, total weight 950 grams.

At 4.8 stars from 39 ratings it is tied with the 365 Blooming eucalyptus for the highest rating in this guide. The Australian reviews explain the price rather than defend it: a buyer working in a hospital where live plants are banned said the pot alone is worth what many retailers charge for a decorative pot on its own, and another called it a little more expensive than others but worth it. Dimensions are 20 cm tall and 12 cm across, which suits a desk, vanity, bedside table or kitchen bench without dominating any of them, and the cement pot handles a humid bathroom better than the cheaper options here.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Thirty-nine ratings is a modest base, and two Australian buyers flagged that it is smaller than they pictured, with one calling it rather expensive while still giving it four stars. Twenty centimetres is genuinely small, and if you are buying on volume of greenery per dollar this is the wrong purchase.

Buy it for the pot and the finish, or buy the Coferset pair instead.

Best artificial plant for a coffee table

The 365 Blooming Decor Artificial Eucalyptus is the most quietly well-judged plant here. It is 29 cm across and 26 cm tall in a white textured pot filled with real pebbles, and it needs no assembly at all. Prices start from $28.97, and it holds 4.8 stars from 61 ratings, tied with the Kurrajong plant for the highest rating in this guide.

The foliage is PEVA, a soft-touch plastic, and the listing describes a frost-like white fuzz on the leaves that mimics the bloom on real eucalyptus. That detail does a lot of work, because cheap faux eucalyptus is flat green and uniformly glossy, and gloss is what the eye reads as plastic. The material is listed as fade resistant and pet-friendly, and the pebbles are real, which adds stability on a table that gets knocked. Australian reviewers are specific: one put it on a coffee table, worried it would be their first faux-plant mistake, and said they would buy it again while noting both plant and pot are visibly plastic up close. Another described the white pot and pebbles as elegant and high-end. At 522 grams it is light, which is fine on a table and a problem on a breezy windowsill.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The pot is the weak point and reviewers in three countries said so. It is textured ABS plastic, and while it photographs well it does not survive close inspection the way the Kurrajong concrete pot does. The fix is cheap: drop the whole thing into a ceramic cachepot. Sixty-one ratings is also a small base for a 4.8 average, so treat that rating as promising rather than proven.

Best artificial hanging plants for shelves and rented walls

The Funzhan 2 Pack Small Artificial Hanging Plant solves the problem nobody plans for, which is that shelves and bookcases look flat until something spills over the edge. Two plants start from $29.99, each with roughly 48 cm of total drop, in a small pot 10 cm across and 7.2 cm tall, with detachable hanging twine.

The detachable twine is what makes these rental-friendly. Left on, they hang from a hook or a curtain rod; taken off, they sit on a bookcase or kitchen cupboard and trail down the side, which needs no holes in anything. They hold 4.4 stars from 69 ratings. The foliage is faux silk and plastic, listed as dust, fade and weather resistant while the product itself is categorised indoor. Reviewers call them realistic and high quality looking, with the most useful note from a buyer who said they were exactly what was wanted but a little smaller all around than expected. At 150 grams for the pair they are very light, so near a ceiling fan expect movement.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The size warning is the real one: 48 cm of total drop measured from the pot means the visible trailing portion is shorter than the photography implies. If you want vines cascading a full metre down a bookcase, buy a longer ivy garland instead. The pot is plain plastic and only 10 cm across, so it is best tucked behind books or inside a basket. Sixty-nine ratings is a moderate base, and most detailed reviews come from outside Australia.

Best cheap artificial monstera, with reservations

The Eyamumo 28 inch Artificial Monstera is included because it is popular, it starts from $22.10, and it is the pick most likely to disappoint you. It has 276 ratings, more than any pick here except the Coferset pair, and it sits at 4.0 stars, the lowest rating in this guide. Both of those numbers are worth knowing before you buy.

You get 71 cm tall and 56 cm wide in an 11.4 cm plastic planter, silk and polyester over metal wire, with the leaves supplied loose so you insert and angle them yourself. Assembled well it fills a side table or a bathroom corner for the price of a takeaway, and several Australian buyers are genuinely happy: one said it looks very real, another that it is far better than others and does not look too fake at all. The reservations are equally clear. One buyer called it very flimsy at one star. Another wrote that it does not even look like a monstera. A third gave three stars with not bad but not as advertised. And a five-star reviewer noted it ships with 15 stems but only 13 leaves, the kind of detail that only surfaces once you are assembling it on the floor. The pattern is consistent: patient assembly and a viewing distance make it fine, straight-from-the-box expectations make it poor.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Assembly is the recurring complaint across markets, with one overseas reviewer describing getting the leaves on as a genuine ordeal before conceding they look good once done. Leaf count against stem count appears inconsistent, and Australian reviewers mention pale leaves that are hard to arrange naturally. Want a monstera that looks right? Spend the extra on a taller pick. Want cheap green mass and prepared to fiddle? This does the job.

What should you look for in an artificial plant?

Six things separate a faux plant that works from one that sits in a cupboard within a year.

• Height against the space, in centimetres. A corner beside a sofa wants 150 cm to 210 cm. A side table or console wants 60 cm to 90 cm. A shelf, vanity or desk wants 20 cm to 30 cm. The commonest mistake is a 70 cm plant in a corner, where it reads as an accident.
• The pot, and whether you plan to keep it. Pots are where budget plants give themselves away and the cheapest thing to fix. Assume you may drop the supplied pot into a ceramic cachepot, and treat a good included pot like the Kurrajong concrete one as a genuine saving.
• Weight. A 213 cm tree at 10 kg stays put. A 160 cm plant at 3 kg needs a heavy outer pot. Cement-filled pots are worth seeking out if you have pets or small children.
• Material. Listings use silk, faux silk, polyester, PE, PEVA and plastic. Soft-touch materials read better at close range, rigid moulded plastic reads better at distance and survives handling. Matte beats glossy every time.
• Bendable stems. Internal wire lets you break up the packed shape. Every pick reviewers called realistic had wire in the stems; the ones they called plasticky had wire too stiff to move, or none.
• UV resistance, but only if it is going outside. Fade ratings appear on some listings and only matter under direct sun. Indoors, even fade-resistant foliage lightens over years if it sits in the beam, so position matters more than the rating.

One thing worth saying plainly: consumer listings on Amazon Australia almost never state a fire rating. If you need certified fire-retardant foliage for a commercial fit-out or a body corporate common area, buy from a specialist trade supplier who will hand you the certificate.

How do you care for artificial plants so they keep looking real?

Dust is the entire game. A faux plant does not die, it slowly greys, and grey is what people notice.

• Dust every two to three weeks. A dry microfibre cloth over the larger leaves takes two minutes on a floor tree, and doing only this puts you ahead of most people.
• For a deeper clean, use a damp cloth. Wipe leaves individually, supporting each from underneath so the stem does not bend. Several listings here recommend exactly this and nothing stronger.
• Keep water off the pot on cheaper plants. The Coferset pots are paper pulp and crack if soaked. Clean the foliage, not the container.
• Reshape once a year. Wired branches settle back toward the packed position. Ten minutes of pulling limbs outward restores the silhouette.
• Move it out of the sun beam. Rotate it every few months, or shift it a metre back from the window. This is the biggest cause of faux plants looking washed out after two summers.
• Mix in one real plant. The eye calibrates on the live one and extends the benefit of the doubt to everything around it.

What else will you want alongside your artificial plants?

Pots come first, because swapping a supplied plastic pot for a ceramic one is the cheapest realism upgrade available.

• Worth Garden 55 cm tall tapered planters, 2 pack, for dropping a 160 cm or 213 cm floor tree into something that reads as furniture rather than packaging.
• SQOWL 13.5 inch ceramic planter, a wide, heavy outer pot for a floor plant with a narrow base.
• 10 inch ceramic planter with drainage and saucer, a mid-size option for anything in the 60 cm to 90 cm range.
• Bamworld flower pot set of five, sizes from 11.3 cm to 17.8 cm, which is the efficient way to re-pot a group of small plants at once.
• LaLaGreen wall planters, 2 pack, for mounting trailing greenery where a shelf is not an option.
• 22 cm metal plant pot with stand, which lifts a short plant to a height where it stops looking stranded on the floor.

What about the artificial plants we did not pick?

Three groups were considered and left out, and the reasons are useful.

Outdoor UV-rated plants. Australian search results are full of specialists selling UV-stabilised topiary, faux hedges and outdoor palms, and that is a real category. Amazon Australia is thin here: the UV-rated hanging ferns listed at the time of writing had two ratings between them. For an uncovered balcony or courtyard, buy from a supplier who states a UV warranty in years and expect to pay more.

Well-reviewed products with no live price. A faux bamboo with 740 ratings, a trailing ivy from the same Australian brand as our Kurrajong pick with 219 ratings, and a 1.5 metre monstera all had no price showing on their Australian listings during research. All three may be worth buying when they return. We will not publish a price we cannot see.

Very cheap multi-packs. Four and six-plant sets of mini faux succulents sell for under $25 and are popular, but at that size the realism ceiling is low, and six mediocre 12 cm plants is a worse outcome than two decent 24 cm ones. For shelf styling volume rather than a centrepiece, they are fine.

Worth being honest about where Amazon sits here. The Australian results are dominated by specialists like The Plants Project and Artificial Plant Shop, and at the premium end their realism beats anything on a marketplace. What Amazon offers is price, delivery speed and hundreds of Australian reviews per product. If you are furnishing a first home on a budget and want to know what actually turns up in the box, that review depth is the advantage.

Artificial plants: frequently asked questions

Do artificial plants look cheap in real life?

Some do. The tells are consistent and avoidable: a glossy plastic pot, uniform leaf colour with no variation, every branch fanned forward in the shape it was packed in, and dust. Fix the pot, spend ten minutes bending branches into an asymmetric shape, and dust it monthly, and a mid-priced faux plant passes at conversational distance. Australian reviewers who called plants in this guide plasticky almost always mentioned stiff stems they could not reposition.

How tall should an artificial plant be for a living room corner?

Between 150 cm and 210 cm for a standard Australian ceiling. Below 150 cm a floor plant looks stranded, and above about 210 cm you start crowding the ceiling in a flat. The FEELEAD olive tree in this guide is 213 cm and the TonJin bird of paradise is 160 cm, which brackets the useful range. Measure the corner height and the width you can spare before ordering, because the olive tree alone spreads 85 cm.

Can artificial plants go outside in Australia?

Only if the listing specifically states UV resistance, and even then expect fading. Every pick in this guide is categorised for indoor use, though several list weather-resistant materials, which makes a covered balcony or an enclosed patio reasonable. Full sun exposure in an Australian summer will lighten untreated foliage within a season or two. For genuinely outdoor use, buy UV-stabilised products from a specialist supplier that states a warranty period.

How do you clean artificial plants?

A dry microfibre cloth over the leaves every two to three weeks handles ordinary dust. For a build-up, wipe each leaf with a damp cloth while supporting it from underneath so the stem does not bend. Avoid soaking the pot, particularly on budget plants with paper pulp or cement pots, which can crack. A soft brush or a hairdryer on cool works for dense foliage where individual leaves are hard to reach.

Are artificial plants safe around pets and kids?

They are pollen-free and non-toxic, which is why several listings in this guide mention pet-friendly materials, and they remove the risk of a curious dog eating a toxic houseplant. The real hazards are physical: small detachable leaves and pebbles are a choking risk for toddlers, and a tall plant in a light pot can be pulled over. Choose weighted pots, and the TonJin pick here uses cement inside its planter specifically to resist tipping.

What else should you sort out in a new home?

Artificial plants are one line on a longer list. These cover the rest of the room and the rest of the move.

• Best plant pots in Australia, because swapping the supplied pot is the single cheapest way to make a faux plant look expensive.
• Best plant stands in Australia, for lifting a short plant to a height where it reads as deliberate.
• Best floating shelves in Australia, the surface most of the small plants in this guide are destined for.
• Best floor lamps in Australia, since a plant in a dark corner is invisible and a lit one is a feature.
• Best bedroom rugs in Australia, for anchoring the corner your new floor plant is standing in.
• Best microfibre cloths in Australia, which is the entire maintenance routine for every plant in this guide.
• The new home checklist, if the plants are the fun part of a much longer settling-in list.

About the author

Anish Puri founded NestPath in 2026 after going through the Australian first-home-buyer process himself. NestPath focuses on Australian first-home buyers because the existing review sites are American, generic, or both. Anish handles editorial selection across the homeowner hub. Reach out: hello@nestpath.com.au