Fake plants behind speakers a good idea?

I kid you not, I believe the a Japanese man/company has discovered how to make living plants play music! That would be way cool. I remember seeing it on the web...
That would make for surreal surrounds.

I once had real plants around my left speaker. A friend brought a Crown RTA over. When I looked at the output, all I saw was a comb filter effect. I said what is this? He said let us remove the plants. Afterwards, there were still problems, but the comb filter was gone.

I should say these were big leaved plants. Maybe a Boston fern would not do this. I have no plants in the room where I have my system.

the best plants to have around your speakers are ones you can smoke! ha ha! at any rate...happy listening!

I once had some fake plants that played music. They sounded better when I put some speakers beind them.

It does a bit of both, alot depending on the density of the tree. Still however, it does improve in situations where either aborption or diffusion is needed. Plants help with slap echo as well. Still it depends.
For instance I find dipoles and planar types don't do as well with plants behind them, nor any sound treatment, save some diffusion. Yet it's most often the opposit with dirrect radiating traditional speaker designs.
It seems my experience with plants has also been that they work at least better sometimes in smaller rooms, where absorption only would be too much, and diffusion better. Here plants often work cheeply if need be.
Like anything, you need to experiment to find out in your room.