When I see office
plants that people look after themselves (and often ones looked after by rival companies!) one thing that comes home to me again and again is that people don't prune enough.
So this is my potted guide to pruning indoor plants.
Now I have a bit of a reputation as a secateur-wielding brute, so what I say may not agree with what's in the books, but I'll say it anyway.
Indoor
plants fall in to three categories, as below. How do you work out which is which? Simply, look at the way the plant grows. If in doubt cut a bit off and see how it responds.
1. Plants that can be shaped
The prime example of this would be the
Ficus family, or any
plant that has been pruned to a standard (lollipop) shape. Also the
Crassula (Money Tree) can be treated this way. Basically, any plant that re-grows outwards when you cut something off the bdy of the plant.
Pruning has two stages and two purposes. The first is to keep the shape. To do this, simply cut off anything that sticks out where it shouldn't! The only problem is, pruning encourages growth where you make the cut, so this alone can make the problem worse. So the second stage is to occasionally make a 'strategic cut' and remove an entire branch back to well inside the bush. Otherwise all new growth will be on the outside and the middle will gradually become bare.
2. Plants that grow vertical 'canes'
The chief examples being
Dracaenas (dragon trees) and
Yuccas.
Let's face it, we've all seen one of these which is all wiggly stem with a handful of leaves on the end! As with the
plants in the first group, these grow new shoots from where you cut them, so quite simply cut a stem back to where you want it to sprout from. If you look at the picture above/right, you can see the Y-shaped junctions where the plant has been pruned before. This is what you will achieve if you prune a head off. The problem is these types of plant tend to have just a handful of big heads, so you can only really cut one off at a time, so you need to prune progressively, i.e. cut one, wait until it sprouts a few leaves, then cut another when the plant can bear it. The bits you remove, by the way, are viable
plants in their own right. Either repot in another container or simply plunge into the soil of the parent
plant and gain another stem. Without any special measures you have a better-than-even chance of survival!
3. Plants that grow shots from the soil
This is the tricky one. Examples would mostly be the palms (like the
Howea shown here), but also a lot of small houseplants.
The key thing they have in common (you can usually tell by looking at how they've grown) is that they won't regrow from a prune point if you cut a bit off. Instead new shoots appear from the soil, or from the very base of the
plant.
The only way you can prune these is to thin them out: cut out leaves to reduce the overall size, selecting leaves which are damaged, or simply going in the wrong direction. In the case of the palms you'll find that the new leaves appear in the middle, so the oldest leaves are usually on the outside of the plant.
Unlike the first two groups this does not promote new growth, and does not really benefit the
plant, it's purely to control the size if it's taking over the room.
When to prune?
The other question I often get asked is "When is the right time to prune my
plant?"
The simple answer is "When it needs it!" Especially in offices, indoor plants grow all year round, albeit more slowly in the winter, so I recommend pruning little and often. If you need to do something drastic, spring/summer is probably best, to give the plant the best chance of re-sprouting. Follow up with a good feed for even better results.
So in summary: don't be scared. Not pruning at all is much worse than the most amateur pruning, and you'll be amazed how satisfying it is when your
plant sprouts healthy new growth as a result of your efforts. Happy chopping!
Jonathan