Our dining room is a windowless dark place, a netherworld of shadows. What little natural light there is has to fight its way through from the kitchen. This is a space ill-suited for organic life. Yet what is this flourishing on the sideboard? A healthy fern with lush green stems and roots bursting out of the pot. How can this be? How can a plant thrive in such gloomy hostile conditions? The answer to this natural wonder is that it is not natural at all. It is plastic. But it is some mighty fine plastic. The fern is one of two artificial potted plants I’ve just bought from Cox and Cox.

Until now, the only plant life in our dining room was in the fruit bowl (and most of this was rather shrivelled). Any real plant placed in our dining room would do what a self-respecting plant should do when given zero access to the sun – keel over and die. Yet this room was crying out for a bit of greenery. Artificial potted plants seemed like the obvious solution, but even so, I was a bit reluctant to spend real money on fake foliage.

I was wrestling with this artificial potted plants stigma when I came across some of Cox and Cox’s Faux Plants on Dear Designer’s blog. These specimens looked pretty convincing, and a seductive 20% introductory discount just about got me over the line. I ordered a couple: the Potted Echeveria and the Potted Faux Fern.

Full marks are awarded to Cox & Cox for speedy and safe delivery. When the Echeveria came out of the box my wife’s reaction was “ooh that’s good”, when the Fern emerged she said “ooh that’s very good”. I was encouraged.

The Fern totally pulls it off. The healthy crop of remarkably realistic leaves can be twisted and bent twhichever way you wish. It comes in a concrete pot complete with fake soil, a couple of stones, and even some roots poking out of the top. In the world of artificial potted plants this is a premier league specimen. You could be forgiven for watering it.

The Echeveria has a similarly uber-realistic finish to the leaves and comes in a simple grey pot with pebbles. I haven’t found a permanent home for it yet but both of these artificial potted plants are keepers. They will reside unfed, unwatered, unpruned but looking fabulous in the shadows of our dining room for many years.