From our perspective, timing is everything. The best time to initiate pruning is during our active growth phase, which typically spans from early spring into the heart of summer. During this period, the combination of longer daylight hours and warmer temperatures provides us with an immense surge of energy. This energy is crucial for rapidly healing the wounds you create with your cuts and for vigorously pushing out new foliar growth from the nodes just below those cuts. Pruning us during our dormant period in late fall or winter is highly stressful. Our metabolic processes slow down significantly, making it difficult to recover, leaving us vulnerable to disease, and potentially stunting our growth come spring.
Your actions directly dictate our form and health. There are several reasons you might prune us, and we respond to each differently. If you are pruning for size control, cutting back leggy or overgrown stems, we will redirect our stored energy into the remaining buds, causing them to break dormancy and create a bushier, more compact form. Shape maintenance involves making strategic cuts to guide our overall architecture, encouraging us to grow in a more symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing manner. Most critically, sanitary pruning—the removal of dead, diseased, or damaged leaves and stems—is a direct act of healing. It prevents decay organisms from spreading into our healthy tissues, conserving our energy for robust growth instead of fighting infection.
How you make the cut is a matter of our well-being. Always use sharp, clean pruning shears or scissors. Blunt tools can crush our stems, creating ragged tears that are slow to heal and are open invitations for pathogens. Before you begin, sterilize your tools with rubbing alcohol or a disinfectant solution to prevent transferring any diseases from other plants. Identify a node—the small, bumpy ridge on a stem where a leaf attaches or once attached. This node is a dormant growth point. Make your cut at a 45-degree angle approximately a quarter-inch above your chosen node. This angled cut helps shed water away from the sensitive node, reducing the risk of rot. The plant's hormonal signals will then travel to that node, stimulating it to produce a new stem and leaves.
The moments after pruning are a critical recovery period for us. While we appreciate a thorough drink, it is vital you do not overwater. Our reduced foliage means we are transpiring (losing water vapor) at a much slower rate, so our water needs decrease temporarily. Water only when the top inch of soil feels dry. Furthermore, this is an ideal time to provide a light feeding with a balanced, water-soluble fertilizer. This gives us a direct boost of nutrients exactly when we need them most to fuel the production of new growth. Finally, please ensure we remain in our preferred location with bright, indirect light. This light is the primary energy source we will use to power our recovery and put on a spectacular show of new, vibrantly colored leaves for you.
