How do you prune your houseplants?
Learn how to prune your houseplants like a pro! In this easy-to-follow guide, I'll walk you through the basics of plant trimming and show you some expert tips to keep your foliage looking its best. From deciding when to prune to using the right tools, you'll learn it all!
Have you ever noticed how a plant grows rapidly when it is happy and healthy? However, sometimes even the happiest of plants require a bit of pruning to keep them that way. In this plant care guide, we'll learn about pruning as a part of plant care.
Pruning is one of the most important things you can do to keep your houseplants healthy for a long time. Pruning is the process of removing dead or unwanted portions of the plant. While it may seem intimidating at first, with a few simple tips and a bit of practice, you can become an expert pruner in no time!
These are the topics we're going to look at in this plant care guide:
Let's get started and learn how to prune your houseplants properly so that your plants can thrive and flourish.
Why is pruning your plants important?
Have you ever noticed how a plant looks so much better after it's been pruned? Pruning is not just to make your plants look nice, but it also helps keep your plants healthy and strong.
When you're pruning the dead or dying stems and leaves off your plant, you're making your plant look better, but you're also removing a potential source of pests and diseases. A plant that's clean and well taken care of can much more easily resist pests.
By removing dead or damaged parts of the plant, air circulation is improved and more light can reach the healthier parts of the plant. This is a great way to keep your plant healthy for a very long time.
If you'd like to learn more about why pruning is important, make sure to have a look at Pruning your houseplants: Why you shouldn't be afraid to do it.
When is the best time to prune houseplants?
Now that you know why pruning is important, we can move on to the real stuff: pruning your plant and helping it stay healthy. Before you start to prune your plant, make sure it's currently spring or summer. You can prune your plants in the fall and winter as well, but it takes much longer for your plant to recover and that could put it at risk of long-term damage.
By waiting for the spring or summer, your plant will have a much easier time recovering from any damage. It might only take a week or two for it to fully recover and carry on with growing. The spring and summer are when your plant is in its growing season, so it'll put out new stems and leaves much more quickly than in the fall or winter.
As I mentioned, you can still prune in the fall and winter, but if you can wait for the spring I recommend you do.
What are the best tools for pruning?
Have you ever wondered what the best tools are for pruning your houseplants? In this section, we'll look at some of the best tools for pruning and why they're so effective.
If you're gardening regularly, you might already have some good pruning shears. In this case, you have all the tools you need to start pruning your indoor plants as well. However, some other tools might be good for you and your plant.
For example, if you're looking into pruning your bonsai, you might want to get a set of bonsai pruning scissors. These scissors are very sharp and precise: perfect for fine-tuning the style you like.
Apart from shears or scissors, you'll also need some rubbing alcohol. You'll use this to clean your tools before and after using them for pruning your plants. Cleaning your tools before using them on a plant is especially important when you're dealing with a plant that has a disease or pests. The last thing you want is to accidentally spread this to other plants.
The easiest way to clean your tools is to use a cotton ball dipped in rubbing alcohol and wiping off the tool. At the very least you should clean the part of the tool that makes contact with the plant.
What part of the plant should you prune?
Now that you've gathered your pruning tools, let's see which part of your plant we should prune. Let's make a list of the most important things to check when deciding what to prune on your houseplant. We'll start with the most important things and go down the list.
- Dead or yellowing leaves
- Diseased or infected areas
- Overcrowded branches
- Long and leggy growth
- Unwanted growth
Let's see why we want to follow the list in this order.
Dead or yellowing leaves
The first thing to check for and remove are any leaves that are dead or turning yellow, as they can drain energy from the plant and potentially spread diseases. By removing these leaves first, your plant won't have to needlessly use its energy to keep those leaves alive. It can start to focus on new growth instead.
Diseased or infected areas
The second thing to remove are parts of the plant that are diseased, infected, or showing signs of pest infestation. You remove these parts to prevent further spread on the plant itself, but also to other plants. If you regularly prune your plants, you might have already prevented this situation by removing the yellow or dead leaves earlier.
Overcrowded branches
When the plant is not suffering from any pests or wasted energy, you can start to help the plant a bit more by deciding how and where it should grow. One of the best ways to do this is by trimming back overcrowded branches or branches that seem to block other branches as they can prevent healthy growth and airflow.
Long and leggy growth
On the other hand, you can also have stems or vines that have become very leggy. You can fix this by pruning back the excessively long and leggy growth to promote a bushier, more compact shape and encourage new growth. With some plants, like Pothos, you can propagate the leggy cuttings and grow new plants.
Unwanted growth
And last but not least, if your plant isn't suffering from anything and is generally quite healthy, you can focus on its appearance. Trim off any unwanted growth or excess leaves, and shape the plant to make it look neat and attractive.
By following this list, you can easily decide which parts of your houseplant should be pruned first and which parts can wait until later.
What is the best technique to prune your plant?
Once you know which part of your plant you want to prune, it's finding the right way to prune your plant. Believe it or not, there is not just 1 way to prune your plant. In this case, you've got 2 options:
- Prune right above a node to promote growth from that node
- Prune right under a node to stop growth from that stem
Let's see why a node is so important when you're pruning a plant and why this matters for your pruning goals.
A node is a thicker section on a stem that contains growth hormones. If you cut just above the node, so the node stays on the stem after pruning, this encourages new growth from the node. But if you cut that node off the stem, you've removed the growth hormone and growth will stop from that spot.
So whether you leave the node on your plant or you remove it has a big impact on what you're trying to achieve. If you want to keep a stem small, you should cut the node off. But if you want to promote more (bushier) growth, you should leave the node on your plant.
This is great when you're pruning stems, but what about large leaves that have brown tips? You can prune the brown tips off as well. When you do this, be aware that you're only cutting in the dead part of the leaf. If you're cutting in the part that's still alive, this will die quite quickly and your work would've been for nothing.
How do you take care of your plant after pruning?
After pruning your houseplant, it's important to follow up with proper care for your plant. For most plants, this means that you should keep the plant in the same space after you've pruned it. The plant will have settled in this spot and moving it could potentially shock the plant. This is bad because besides recovering from being pruned, your plant will also have to recover from stress.
Most tropical plants recover a little easier when you provide them with a more humid environment than normal. Occasionally misting your plant during the first few weeks will help your plant to recover more quickly.
Plants like succulents and cacti will recover more quickly if you let the cuts dry out to form a callus. This callus also protects the plant against potential diseases, so make sure to give your succulent or cactus a few days to form this callus.
Most plants prefer to be watered after pruning because this is the best time to give them a boost to recover.
Thank you for reading this post! I hope it helps you to keep your plants healthy and beautiful! If you're looking for more guides on specific plants, you can always request a plant guide to get a guide for the plant you have trouble with.
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