Can i prune a rubber plant

Even though keeping a rubber plant as a small shrub requires slightly more planning and maintenance, the satisfaction of customizing a plant to suit your specific desires will make it worth the extra effort.

Updated on May 20, by Amber Noyes. Amber Noyes born and raised in a suburb Nebraska town, San Mateo. With experience working on an organic farm, water conservation research, farmers markets, and potted plants she understands what makes plants thrive and how can we better understand the connection between microclimate and plant health.

This is super helpful—I like the tree form of my ficus melany, but would like it to branch out just a bit more. Thank you! Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Snip the top of the rubber plant down to a desired height. Remove about one-third to one-half of the plants lateral branches. Make your cuts just after a node the point where a leaf or another stem branches off to encourage new growth, and continue cutting back this new growth as it appears.

Propagate some cuttings and plant back into the same pot to fill in the lower sections. If you have recently repotted your rubber plant, it is good practice to wait a while before pruning, or vice versa. Both of these activities are quite stressful for a plant, so doing them at the same time can cause shock.

Removing dead or damaged branches should be done at any point throughout the year. This will keep your plant looking beautiful, while also encouraging healthy new growth and help to avoid pests and disease. Gloves are recommended while pruning, because the white sap which will drip from the cuts can cause skin irritation. Be careful not to get it in your eyes. You may also want to cover the floor underneath the plant before pruning, as the sap will harden and stain surfaces. As always, make sure you begin with sharp, sterile shears.

These will protect against any aggressive ripping or tearing of the stems while making cuts. You can prune Rubber Plants throughout the year, but the ideal time is late spring to early summer. New growth may be delayed if you prune out of their growing season. Individual stems can be trimmed to any length. Pruning should be done with a sharp, sterile blade.

Trim just above a node, or growing point. New branches emerge below the cut. Rubber Plants can take a lot of trimming. If you need to remove more, do it in stages every two or three months to avoid shocking the plant. With good care, it will quickly fill in with healthy leaves. Envision the result you want before beginning to prune a rubber plant. Though you can trim the plant into funkier shapes, there are two basic forms: a tall, slender tree with a single spire or a bushier, lower-profile shrub.

Evaluate which branches should stay or be removed. Rubber Plants bleed white latex sap from its cuts. The plant is, after all, from the same plant family that produces natural rubber. The sap can be caustic and messy, so you want to take precautions. To put it simply, if you remove the growing tip of a Rubber Tree, the nodes just below the cut will be activated to grow into new branches.

And, it will most likely try to branch. So, if you really like the height of the plant and would rather encourage more growth on lower branches to fill out, you can cut back any new branches originating from your top cut close to the stem to discourage new growth. Using a combination of the different pruning types above, you can usually wrangle an overgrown Rubber Tree back into something a little more manageable. This is probably the most common scenario you will run up against.

Turn your head for a second, and you swear your Rubber Tree just doubled in size—time to grab the shears and bring it back to earth. Start by considering the entire tree. If you already have branches lower down on the plant with a good amount of foliage, you may only need to utilize topping to get your tree back down to the desired height. On the other hand, if your plant is very columnar, without many branches, this may be a great opportunity to do a hard prune further down the trunk to encourage more branching down low.

On older plants, I tend to try and keep leaves. If you notice any issues, try to resolve those before making any cuts. In the event that you have a smaller plant and foresee a more bush-like Rubber Tree in your home, now is the perfect time to start pruning to encourage branching. To successfully achieve this, you need to start with a vision of what you want it to look like.

Where is the plant going in your house, and how do you want it to fill the space? As your plant grows, monitor its height and plan your cuts to encourage branches to break at specific points to create the structure you want. Each cut should be made by picking a set of nodes at the desired height and making your cut angled or straight across just above them.

After a few weeks, you should begin to see new growth emerging from the nodes, eventually turning into new branches. Over the course of a few seasons using this strategic pruning, your Rubber Tree should be close to the desired shape and, hopefully, filling out its spot in your home nicely. Any time you make a cut on a younger plant, be sure to leave at least leaves below a cut to allow the plant to function.

This scenario is more common with older Rubber Trees that have been encouraged to branch from an early age. After many seasons, bushier plants tend to get a little crowded with all those big, glossy leaves sprouting from the many branches that have formed. I start by cutting out any dead, dying, or bare branches from the Rubber Tree. Next, I remove any branches that are growing downward, crossing over other branches, or otherwise impeding any growth I want to encourage.

This makes it easy to make your rubber plant thick and bushy. How do I stop the white sap from dripping now that I have pruned my rubber plant? It should stop dripping on its own eventually, as the latex sap of a rubber plant dries at room temperature. You don't need to do anything additional to stop the natural flow of the sap. If you're having problems with the sap dripping indoors or getting on things it shouldn't, place plastic mats down on the ground around the plant to prevent mess.

Not Helpful 2 Helpful 6. After pruning my rubber tree, the area where I pruned got mushy all the way to the main 4" trunk. The plant died. What did I do wrong? There are many reasons why the plant could have wilted and died like this.

The most common cause for that kind of reaction in rubber plants is overwatering, but if you're certain that the pruning was the specific cause of the issue, make sure in the future that the pruners you are using are sharp and clean, as it is possible for the plant to contract infections from from dirty pruners. Also, as stated in the article, you have to be certain not to prune off too much, or the plant will be unable to photosynthesize.

Not Helpful 2 Helpful 8. If you're looking to regrow the plant from a cutting, honey is a good natural substitute for rooting hormone. Not Helpful 3 Helpful My rubber plant is planted outside, and it is getting too tall.

Can I cut it back? You can! Just be certain to wear gloves, and use a drop cloth or plastic sheets on the ground to protect the surrounding environment from the plant's sap. Not Helpful 0 Helpful Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.

So, if you want to limit the height of your rubber plant, keep it in a small pot not larger than 8 inches 20 cm across. Helpful 3 Not Helpful 1.

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