What To Do With a Leggy Plant
If your houseplants begin branching away from the center and become leggy, it’s time to cut them back to encourage them to grow in the right directions. First, select the stem that is in need of a trim. Then, use a razor blade or sharp pruning shears to make a cut straight across the stem. You should aim your cut for just above a node that is facing toward the center of the plant. If you prune a section that is at least four or five inches long, you can use this to start a new plant instead of just composting it. This is the simplest method of cutting back your plant, but it is not the only one.
Pinching your plants is another way to encourage positive growth. If you pinch out the center growth of a young plant, it will grow low, and spread outward along the ground rather than up. This center growth uses most of the plant’s resources, so by removing it you are encouraging it to send resources to the outer edge of the plant. To be effective, you must start pinching back when the plant is still young. Otherwise, you’ll need to do more drastic pruning to get the effect you want.
You can also pinch your flowering plants to get larger, more beautiful blooms. A plant with many flower blooms spends its energy equally across all of these blooms. When you remove some of the blooms, the remaining buds will grow larger, producing much more beautiful flowers. While you will end up with fewer flowers, the ones you do have will be beautiful and large. If you plan to use your flowering plants for cuttings, pinch back the flowers to help the plant produce bouquet-ready blooms.
Air layering is another way to control the growth of your plants such as eugenia myrtifolia. Use the air layering method to cut back long-stemmed, leggy plants, returning them to a better size and shape. This is more often used in growing bonsai trees such as the Brush Cherry bonsai. Several inches below the lowest branches, make an incision in the stem, about two inches long and running vertically up the stem, about a third of the stem diameter in depth. Then, bind sphagnum muss around the cut, water thoroughly, and cover with plastic. If you water it regularly and keep the cut area covered, in about two months new roots will start to grow at the cut line. Then, you can cut the top of the plant, just below the new roots, and root it in a new pot. Then discard the lower portion of the old plant.
Different plants can be pruned at different seasons, so make sure that you know your plant’s requirements before you begin cutting it back. For most plants, the optimal time to do this will be in the spring or fall. While many plants can withstand a large amount of pruning, be careful not to remove too much at once.
