Hilton Carter: A Plant-Focused Life

By Sue Long

March 2025

“Have you ever walked into a plant nursery or greenhouse and instantly felt a change in the air? The feeling of calm that washes over you as you tilt your head back, close your eyes, and take a deep breath. This is the feeling you’re looking to replicate when you bring plants into your home.”

That is the philosophy Hilton Carter lives by at his home in Baltimore. It’s also one he shares with clients and fans. No doubt, if you love plants, you are aware of Hilton, an entrepreneur whose plant-focused interior design career is flourishing. His ever-expanding “green empire” includes regular appearances on the Today show, features in scores of magazines and newspapers, profiles on home-oriented cable networks, 552,000+ Instagram followers, a podcast, appearances at garden and home shows across the country, projects for Target (the rotating planter!), and five books, the most recent being Living Wild (the photography!).  

The personable (and very tall) Hilton paid a visit to Longwood Gardens in January to share his philosophy about plants and provide inspiration through visuals of projects he had completed. Hilton joked that while he did grow up among plants, albeit of the faux variety, he admitted he never imagined his life would take the direction it has.

Living the Green Life

Hilton’s career path began by earning a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and later, an MFA from the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. His credentials led to work as a filmmaker and director, which he attributes in part to his eye for design, explaining that architecture and interior design often play important supporting roles in movies, television shows and even commercials.

One such project took Hilton to Glen Mills in Chester County, where the crew was assigned the task of creating a marketing campaign for an upscale retirement community. As Hilton recalled, the project entailed nonstop work that needed to be completed on a tight schedule. “It was stressful,” he relayed. A resident of the community suggested the crew go out for a nice dinner at a nearby restaurant. Taking her advice, they walked into a plant-filled greenhouse that had been transformed into a restaurant, complete with “chandeliers” fashioned from staghorn ferns. “I was transfixed by all the beauty that surrounded me,” he told the Longwood audience. “The energy was amazing. For the first time in a long time, I was able to focus on the people I was with and forget about what I needed to get done. I felt at peace. Being around all those plants changed my life.” Determined to live more of a “green” lifestyle, Hilton bought a few plants for his home in L.A.

In 2014, his career took him to New Orleans, where he joined an ad agency. It was in the Big Easy that he became further infatuated with plants and started a collection that included easy-care varieties such as succulents and pothos, eventually advancing to a fiddle leaf fig he named Frank. “I’m obsessed with fiddle leaf figs!” he shared.

Home is Where the Plants Grow

Hilton eventually returned to his roots in Baltimore (with Frank in tow), where the size of his plant collection grew substantially. Along the way, Hilton met his wife, Dr. Fiona Vismans, who is a dentist. The two were married in a jungle in Mexico, which added another dimension to Hilton’s desire to beautify interior spaces with plants. “It was something I wanted to always remember,” he said of the ceremony that was conducted amidst tropical plants. “I wanted to recreate that at home so that the memory would always stay with me.”

Think about it: if a close friend or a relative gifted you with a plant, you always think of them when you look at it. The same can be said of a favorite experience. According to Hilton, memory plays a key role in the way you incorporate plants into your home. “Take inspiration from your favorite memory of plants,” he said of inspiring places such as a greenhouse, a park, a vacation destination, a restaurant or your grandmother’s house.

Fortunately for Hilton, he found a kindred spirit in Fiona, who loves plants almost as much as he does. The key word is almost. Hilton noted that his plant collection presented the couple with their first marital test: the art of compromising. Hilton admitted that even plant lovers can have a level of tolerance, so it’s important for the collector to recognize that. On the flip side, it’s important for plant haters to recognize that their plant-loving partners cannot exist in sterile surroundings. (Fortunately for Hilton, his interior design projects allow him to indulge in plants in someone else’s home.)

For the record, the couple view nearly 300 plants as manageable. Obviously, Fiona recognizes the therapeutic qualities of plants; her professional website exudes a sense of calm and serenity, as the filtered backgrounds of the pages depict plants. Through becoming a father (of two), Hilton discovered another role for his plants to play: educating his children about nature.

Plants 101

You know the drill. You buy a plant and bring it home and stress sets in – for both you and the plant. “Plants need to make the transition from the greenhouse to your home,” Hilton cautioned. “Yes, it’ll lose leaves and it may droop. But it will adjust.”

The first step to growing happy plants is placing them in the proper light. “Light is the most important thing in raising a healthy plant,” he noted. Of course, the options are wide ranging and include direct sunlight; bright, indirect light (which, according to Hilton, is 3 feet away from a light source, thus creating an environment that “all plants love.”); medium light (3-7 feet away from a light source); and low light (7-10 feet). Beyond 10 feet, plants will not be happy. (Of course, the snake plant might be the exception, as it could probably survive in a dark basement.) He also advised that you go shopping with location in mind and choose a plant that fits it from a light perspective instead of just buying a plant and figuring out where it will go once you’re back home. He is also not averse to using grow lights, especially in winter, although he uses them year around.

Water is also important although, according to Hilton, many indoor gardeners make the mistake of overwatering their plants. “More plants die from being overwatered than they do from dryness,” he pointed out. Another mistake is watering your plants according to a strict schedule. Hilton advised that indoor gardeners should instead rely on the old stick-your-finger-into-the-soil test to determine if a plant needs to be watered or invest in a meter that does the job. One strategy he relies on is to “zone” liked-minded plants together (where water requirements are concerned).

In using plants to decorate a home, Hilton likes to bring a sense of nature indoors by creating levels in which they are positioned, specifically at, above and below eye level. Such a plan helps to “blur indoor and outdoor spaces.” He also likes to incorporate “living walls” into designs. For propagation purposes, he places groupings of what looks like chemistry tubes on walls in which cuttings take root. He also advised that you look at plants as art, in that they bring composition, color and texture to a space.

Speaking of art, Hilton is of the opinion that containers help to showcase plants and don’t necessarily have to come from a store. “I once used a canoe as a planter,” he pointed out as he shared the visual on the screen. He also uses containers to tie into colors seen in a rug or furnishings. “Containers help to tell the story of a room,” he noted.

He did caution that attention needs to be paid to the material from which the container was made, explaining, “Some materials can whisk the moisture out of the soil, so you’ll need to pay attention to the plant’s watering needs.” And, if you happen to fall in love with a container that doesn’t have a drainage hole, Hilton recommended that you drill one yourself. Another trick he uses is to position a plant (housed in a smaller container) in a larger container.

Like their owners, plants enjoy a vacation from indoor environments. Hilton advised that moving plants outdoors should be done in stages and again, light requirements should be heeded.

Downsizing Strategies

As the saying goes, time is of the essence, and we must often make difficult decisions to scale back on a hobby or interest due to a hectic schedule or new responsibilities. Hilton can commiserate and assured the audience that while plants can make you happy, they can also make you sad and stressed. “If it begins to feel like drudgery, you have too many plants,” he said. “Plants need to be viewed as therapeutic and joyful exercises.”

So, what is the plan should you need to scale back your own plant collection? Many plant lovers reach manageable levels by gifting excess plants to friends and family. Some announce their intentions on social media and host giveaways or sales. Hilton suggested another avenue. He explained that he once had to part ways with an overgrown plant and gifted it to the Baltimore Conservatory. “That way, I can still visit it,” he said of his strategy.

Heeding Hilton’s Advice

How inspiring was Hilton? His seminar made for an interesting and inspirational (must buy plants!) two hours. Once concluded, my companion made a beeline for Longwood’s garden shop and spied a large container that she thought would be perfect for her living room. It took four of us to wrestle it into the car. (Fortunately, her husband had a dolly at the ready when we pulled into the driveway.) As we made our way back to Lancaster, she questioned whether she should have bought a second container (they were on sale and only one or two remained). Then, an idea struck. “I’ll just call down there tomorrow and have them put one on hold,” she said.

Follow Hilton Carter on Instagram @hiltoncarter.
Visit Longwood Gardens at longwoodgardens.org.