Have you tried raising houseplants only to watch them grow spindly and weak before wilting miserably?
If you haven’t had experience growing plants in your home, you might think all you need to do is water them at the right time and make sure they have sunlight.
There is much more to it. Your plants need some help!
Pruning is a critical part of keeping a plant healthy and attractive. But if you lack experience, you might be hesitant about why, where, and how often you should prune houseplants.
Let the experts at Botanica Floral + Home help you get started. Read on to learn how pruning is helpful, as well as how and when to carry out a thorough pruning that leaves the plant looking more impressive and less prone to disease.
Pruning involves removing the dead and dying leaves and stems from a plant. All plants, even healthy ones, go through cycles of losing leaves. If they don’t fall off, they need to be cut back.
Pruning is also done to control the size and shape of the plant. Someone new to gardening might not be aware that a gardener has a lot of power over how a plant grows. Being strategic in pruning can make the plant grow fuller as opposed to tall and gangly, for instance.
Concerning how much to prune, it’s best to follow the one-third rule. Pruning more than a third of the plant at a time can send it into shock. Some plants, such as ficus trees, are more sensitive than others in this respect.
Although not all houseplants require pruning, most benefit from being pruned at least occasionally.
If a houseplant has outgrown its space or has dead or dying leaves, pruning is a good way to encourage new growth and discourage pests and diseases.
The first step in how to prune houseplants is to sharpen your scissors or garden tools if they are dull. A sharp cut helps stems heal faster. Dull tools can damage plants by crushing the stems and making it difficult for them to heal and continue growing.
Be sure your tools are clean by scrubbing them with alcohol or bleach and water. This will help prevent the transfer of any viruses, bacteria, or other pests between plants.
Consider investing in garden shears or pruners from the Botanica Floral + Home shop to ensure the best possible results.
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Remove any leaves, flowers, or limbs that are brown, limp, discolored, or dry.
Cut at a 45-degree angle just above a leaf bud to prevent moisture from pooling on the cut and interfering with growth. Slope the cut away from the bud to divert any emerging sap as well.
Don’t cut green or vibrant leaves or limbs unless you are trying to correct overgrowth.
For larger, dead-looking sections, you can cut the entire branch rather than each leaf, but keep the main stem intact for regrowth. Remove dead flowers by cutting the flower stem at the point where it emerges from the plant, preferably without cutting any leaves off the plant in doing so.
If a plant has outgrown its space you can cut back the longest branches at about one-third their length and a 45-degree angle.
You can also remove any side shoots, avoiding nodules. Nodules are new buds that haven’t bloomed yet.
Prune your houseplants to check unruly growth.
If your plant is overgrown, it takes up too much room in your space and requires the individual parts of the plant to compete for airflow. This can compromise the plant’s vigor by stunting its growth and making it more susceptible to disease and pests.
Prune your houseplants to encourage healthier growth.
If you reduce the size of the plant above ground in proportion to the size of its root system, the root system services fewer buds and shoots. These, in turn, receive a higher proportion of water and nutrients and grow back healthier-looking than before.
If your goal is to improve the shape of your plant and make it appear fuller, pruning can help. This is because it causes the plant to forego apical growth in favor of lateral growth.
If parts of your plant are sick or dying, pruning them before they fall off saves your plant the energy of trying to maintain them. It also staves off pests attracted to dead or decaying leaves.
When dying or sick areas of a plant offer no resistance to pulling, you can be sure they are not salvageable.
If a portion of a leaf turns brown, use scissors to remove it, following the natural contours of the leaf as much as possible.
Houseplants should be pruned at various times, including:
If a houseplant begins to outgrow its space, you can prune it without fear of damaging it. Or, as leaves die, they need to be cut back, so the plant can keep growing optimally. The beginning of the growing season (late winter or early spring for most species) is when you should focus on a more thorough pruning to reshape the plant.
If your plants are on your porch or deck, and exposed to changing temperatures, it is important to avoid pruning during certain times. For instance, late summer is not an ideal time to prune a plant because any new growth will not have time to mature before the cold sets in and prevents healing.
No. Some plants generally do not respond well to pruning. These plants need only to be pruned occasionally, and then mainly just to remove dead and decaying portions.
For example, if you have a palm, Norfolk Island pine, or tree fern, you can cut off dead lower branches and branch tips to tidy up the tree, but this will not yield much regrowth. Cutting off the top areas of these plants will almost always kill them.
If your cuttings are clean (i.e. not diseased) they may be propagated. Propagation in this manner is faster and more reliable than seed germination.
If your plant cuttings are diseased, they should not be propagated or composted due to the risk of spreading the disease to other plants.
You can propagate most plants by placing the cuttings in water where they will grow new roots or in wet sand or a soilless potting medium.
To propagate cuttings in water, place your cuttings in an appropriate sized vase or other container with water. Preferably with one or two nodes beneath the water. Most often this is where the roots will sprout from. Once roots form, they can be planted in soil.
If propagating them in wet sand or a soilless potting medium (African violets, begonias, sanseveria, succulents), allow the end of the cuttings to dry out and the cuts to scab over. The leaves can then be planted and kept evenly moist. The use of rooting hormone can help your cuttings root better and faster and is available at most garden centers.
Some plants whose leaves you can propagate in sand:
Plants whose stems you can root in water:
Some of these plants are available at our shop, Botanica Floral + Home. We also offer many services, including event and holiday decor for both personal and corporate venues.
Don’t let uncertainty about your competence in nurturing plants keep you from bringing them in to beautify your home. Let Botanica Floral + Home advise you about best practices to nurture the new additions to your living space.
We can even recommend the best plants for people who doubt their ability to keep plants alive.
Visit our shop to find excellent specimens of flowers and botanicals, as well as bouquets and gift items such as candles and vases. We also create floral arrangements that can be delivered or set up at an event you are hosting.
Whatever effect you desire in your living or workspace, we can help you achieve it. Your order can be customized to best suit the atmosphere you hope to create. The unique style of our arrangements will impress your loved ones and guests and enliven the shared space.
At Botanica Floral + Home, we believe bringing nature inside refreshes people in a special way. Visit our shop to see our offerings in person and to discuss further how we can serve you.
Click here to shop our floral delivery Portland/Vancouver Metro area today!
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