Room treatment using plants.

I posted this on HH's "socks" thread, but thought it worthy of a tangent discussion.  I am curious to know if others have tried this.

Spurred by one of Huge's room treatment threads, and a discussion with joerand, I got to thinking about acoustic room treatment to address an issue with the sound of my system.  In this thread I am not talking about bass issues or room modes, but higher frequencies where midrange and treble reflections can compete with first arrival sound.  My speakers sit out in the room, 63 inches (1.6m) from the back wall and 54 inches (0.61m) from the fireplace.  The first reflection off the fireplace is delayed about 7 to 8 m-sec.  (close to Haas effect limit).  I felt I needed to absorb or diffuse the first reflection from the speakers off the brick fireplace behind.

As a quick experiment, I grabbed three bed pillows and hung them from the mantel.  This did not look so good, but my wonderful wife tolerated them temporarily as an experiment.  The improvement in sound was not profound, but it was significant enough that i did not want to remove the pillows.  They remained for a few weeks, and were in place when I hosted a local forum gathering.  Finally, I had to replace them with something more aesthetically pleasing, but what?

I placed tall plants between each speaker and the fireplace, so as to diffuse the sound which would otherwise reflect towards the listener, as you can see in the photo:

To my delight, the plants were even more effective than the pillows.  These were quickly relocated from elsewhere in the room, so I plan to replace the one on the right with another palm to approach symmetry.  But I consider this to be a very affordable "acoustic room treatment" which noticeably improves the sound field.  I hear notes decay into the recorded venue more clearly, as if some muddling "noise" were removed.  I recommend this approach as an affordable and domestically acceptable approach to room treatment for taming mid-to-treble reflections.

Charlie