From my roots upward, my entire being is driven by sunlight and survival. In my natural state, I am a spreading ground cover, sending out runners (stolons) to claim new territory. When I sense that light is scarce or coming from only one direction, my primal instinct takes over: I must grow taller, and quickly, to outcompete neighboring plants and reach the sun. This rapid vertical growth comes at a cost. I must divert energy away from producing the lush, fragrant leaves you desire and instead focus it into elongated stems with wide gaps between leaf nodes. You perceive this as becoming "leggy." It is, in essence, my response to a perceived threat of being shaded out.
When you make a clean cut through my stem, just above a set of leaves, you are doing far more than just harvesting. You are fundamentally interrupting my hormonal command structure. The tip of each stem produces a hormone called auxin that suppresses the growth of lateral buds further down the stem. By removing the growing tip, you remove that source of auxin. This signals to the dormant buds in the leaf axils (the points where leaves meet the stem) that it is now safe and necessary to wake up and grow. Instead of one single stem reaching for the sky, I will now channel my energy into producing two, three, or even four new stems from those nodes just below your cut. This is how you make me bushy.
For the most effective results, please find a node where you see a healthy pair of leaves. Using sharp, clean shears or scissors, make a clean cut approximately a quarter to a half-inch above that node. Do not leave a long, barren stub above the node, as this can die back and potentially invite disease. The ideal cut is made at a slight angle, which helps water run off. This precise action is a clear directive to me: "Stop growing upward from this point and instead, branch out here." I will respond vigorously by sending out new shoots from those nodes, effectively doubling the stem count at that point and creating a denser, fuller form.
You can begin this process once I am established and have reached a height of about six to eight inches. Do not be timid. Regular, consistent pruning is the key. You should aim to prune me every few weeks throughout my active growing season. This frequent tipping-back does not weaken me; on the contrary, it encourages constant, dense, vegetative growth. It prevents me from ever entering that frantic, leggy survival mode. Furthermore, if you see a flower bud beginning to form, please prune that stem immediately. Flowering and seed production signals the completion of my life cycle, and my leaf quality and growth will significantly decline afterward. By pruning the flowers, you keep me in a perpetual state of vigorous vegetative growth.
