The Money Tree, or Pachira aquatica, is a popular houseplant known for its distinctive appearance, often featuring a trunk composed of several braided stems. This tropical plant is a relatively vigorous grower, making regular pruning a necessary task for both maintaining its health and achieving the desired aesthetic. Pruning helps control the plant’s size and shape, preventing it from becoming too tall or leggy in an indoor environment. Understanding exactly where and when to make these cuts is the key to encouraging lush, balanced growth.
Setting Goals and Timing the Prune
The decision to prune should be guided by specific goals, such as controlling the plant’s overall height or encouraging a bushier, more compact canopy. Removing dead, yellowed, or damaged branches is another purpose, as this directs the plant’s energy toward healthy new growth instead of maintaining struggling parts. For specimens with a braided trunk, pruning helps maintain the desired shape and prevents the top growth from becoming too heavy and unbalanced.
The optimal time to conduct a significant structural prune is during the late winter or early spring, just before the active growing season begins. This timing allows the Pachira aquatica to recover quickly and immediately channel its increased energy into new shoots. Pruning during the plant’s peak growth period ensures that the wounds heal faster, reducing the plant’s stress and the risk of disease or pest entry. Dead or diseased foliage, however, can be removed at any time of the year as a maintenance measure.
Making the Precise Cuts
The physical act of pruning a money tree focuses on a specific anatomical feature of the stem known as a node. A node is the slightly swollen point on the stem where a leaf or branch naturally emerges, and it contains the dormant buds that will produce new growth. Cutting just above this point is necessary to stimulate the new growth that will replace the removed section.
When making a cut, position clean, sharp pruning shears approximately one-quarter to one-half inch above a healthy node. The cut should be made at a slight angle, sloping away from the bud, which prevents moisture from pooling directly on the node and encourages proper healing. Sterilizing your tools with rubbing alcohol before and after use is important to prevent the transfer of pathogens.
Different pruning goals require different cutting techniques. A heading cut involves cutting back the stem tip to a desired height, encouraging dormant buds below to produce new lateral branches for a bushier plant. A thinning cut removes an entire branch back to the trunk or main branch, reducing density and improving air circulation. Avoid cutting into the woody, lignified parts of the stem, as these older sections are far less likely to regenerate new growth compared to the younger, green stems.
Aftercare and Using Cuttings
Immediately following a major pruning, adjust the money tree’s care to support its recovery and the emergence of new growth. Reduce the frequency of watering slightly, only irrigating when the top inch of soil is dry to the touch, and ensure it receives bright, indirect light. Providing adequate light is particularly important, as the plant needs this energy to fuel the development of new leaves and stems from the stimulated nodes.
The stems removed during pruning can be utilized to propagate new plants using stem cuttings. Select healthy, green stem sections that are typically around six inches long and possess at least two or three nodes. For successful rooting, remove all the lower leaves so that the cutting can direct its energy towards root production rather than supporting existing foliage.
The cuttings can be rooted either in water or directly in a well-draining soil mix. Positioning the cutting in a warm spot with bright, indirect light will maximize the chances of new root formation in both methods.
- For water propagation, place the cut end into a container of clean water, ensuring at least one node is submerged, and change the water every few days to keep it fresh.
- If rooting in soil, dip the cut end into a rooting hormone powder to encourage faster and more robust root development before planting it into the medium.