Pruning Guide to Indoor House Plants

Pruning is important for indoor house plants because it helps you ensure they grow the way you want. Plus, you want to remove the dead stems or leaves, as that will prevent disease and pests from appearing. Pruning is necessary because it helps keep your plant healthy in the long run, which can make a huge difference if you manage it properly.

When is it ideal for pruning your plants?

If you have indoor house plants, you may want to prune them at the beginning of the growing season. Usually, that’s either towards the end of the winter or the beginning of spring. Your plants are waking up, the days are longer, so this becomes the ideal time to prune your plants. With that in mind, if you have flowering plants, prune them after the flowering cycle. If you do it during the flowering cycle, that becomes a challenge, so keep it for the time after it flowers to avoid any possible issues that might appear in a situation like this.

How can you prune indoor house plants?

Now that you know when to prune your indoor house plants, it’s a good idea to learn how to get started with this process. Thankfully pruning these plants is not that hard; it all comes down to trial and error.

• We recommend using sterilized pruners or scissors, just because these prevent any disease from being spread to your plants. You can sterilize cutting tools by holding them over a flame or use a solution of water and bleach. These remove any bacteria or unwanted compounds.
• Sharp your pruners, if you have a dull blade, then your pruning process will end up sloppy and that’s the type of thing you need to avoid as much as you can.
• Take a few steps back and then figure out what shape is ideal for your plant. Sometimes you can find the ideal pruning shapes for indoor house plants online, so a quick search might help here. It’s recommended to avoid removing more than ¼ of your plant’s leaves. Pruning doesn’t harm your plant in any way. Instead, it will help your plant stay healthy in the long run.
• When you encounter leggy stems, the best approach is to prune those to around a node. The node is that place where you have the stem meeting the leaves.
• Remove all the dead matter. As we said, this can be a problem if you just leave it there. Also, pull any rotten stems and let the soil dry before you water it. Even if this might not be that hard to do, it’s one process that matters and will make a stark difference.
• When you have a flowering houseplant, you want to remove the spent flowers, pinch them off, or you can also clip them back close to the stem. That will help ensure everything is working ok and your plant maintains its health in the long run.

What plants don’t need any pruning?

You will notice that most indoor house plants need some pruning. But not all of them need that. Those include things like palms, orchids, some pine and so on. You still need to remove the dead leaves, because those can become detrimental for your plant in the long term. This is still fine, even though the plant requires no general pruning.

Should you do anything else after pruning your indoor house plants?

The pruning process is not long, but you need to pay attention to the needs and requirements of that plant. Mostly, you will not have to do anything else after you prune the plant. That’s because most plants can recover from pruning on their own. Most of them might even have some new growth in a few weeks. Others might take months to recover, but even in that case they do it all on their own.

What you can do is add high-quality fertilizer that’s particularly good for that plant. The benefit here is that your plant can access great nutrients and vitamins. In doing so, it will recover a lot faster. Another thing to focus on is wiping off dirt or dust from the leaves. That’s especially true if you have one of those larger plants that accumulate quite a lot of dust. A rag or sponge will be more than enough here. We recommend using a different rag or sponge for each plant. Otherwise, you can transfer pests from one plant to the next.

Also, avoid overwatering your plants. You want to check the watering guidelines for your plant, since every plant has its fair share of different watering requirements. You can stick your finger one inch in the soil, and if the soil is not damp, then the plant might need water. With that being said, there are signs of overwatering like brown patches on leaves, moldy flowers, brown roots, leaves that fall, etc.

Conclusion

Learning how to prune indoor house plants is not that complicated, but you need to adjust it to every plant as you see fit. It’s going to take some trial and error, yet this is a great process and one that can take an enormous difference. We highly recommend avoiding any rush, and once you check it out, you will be impressed with the results and benefits. One thing is certain, pruning the indoor house plants is definitely worth it. Also, do it as often as needed. You further want to ensure your plant has enough time to recover after pruning!