How to prevent indoor plants from growing too large?

Plants grow, some faster than others, but all do. This is something that cannot be avoided, since growth is part of life and also of survival because the older they are, the easier it will be for them to overcome the attack made by insects that quickly become pests. , as well as infections caused by viruses, bacteria and fungi.

But yes that There are several things you can do to prevent indoor plants from growing too large., something that can undoubtedly be of great interest to you if you grow those that can reach the ceiling.

Choose the right plants

It is the basic, although it is the most complicated as well. When you go to a nursery, or when you are about to buy plants online, it is easy to fall in love with any of them: trees, palms, shrubs, orchids, or others. If you do not know the adult size they can get, you run the risk of ending up saying that they are growing too much. Therefore, apart from investigating to know that information, our advice is that do not buy trees or tall palm trees if you are going to have them indoors, for these reasons:

• Trees: they are generally very large plants that are not adapted to living in indoor conditions. They could be pruned, but that would not mean that they ended up weakened by the lack of light and space.
• Tall palm trees: the Kentia (Howea forsteriana) And areca (Dypsis lutescens) are two of the most cultivated palm trees within homes. The first grows at a fairly slow rate, the other is faster, but both eventually exceed 4 and 5 meters. What's more, the kentia reaches 15 meters, and the areca 6 meters once they are adults. And, unlike trees for example, they cannot be pruned beyond removing the dry leaves since they are not capable of sprouting from the stem.

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Give them light, but not excessively

One of the main problems of indoor plants is the lack of light. Because, they will grow by lengthening their stems in the direction of the strongest light, which can come from a lamp, or from a window. When forced to do so, they become very vulnerable to both environmental changes and pests and diseases.

How to avoid it? Putting them in a room where there is a lot of light, with windows. But beware They do not have to be placed right in front of the glass because their leaves will burn, but they must be placed next to or close to them. In addition, every day the pots must be rotated 180º so that all parts of the plants receive the same amount of light.

Or if you prefer, get a plant light here. This will be very useful especially if you have a terrarium with plants for example, or in a grow tent.

Reduces the length of its stems

The ideal is to do it when they are still young plants, but it can also be done without problems when they are already large and / or have reached their ceiling. But, at what time and how is it done? Okay, pruning should be done in early spring preferably, shortly before or shortly after growth has resumed. It is also done in autumn if it is warm.

When the time comes, take scissors to trim the thin green stems (less than 1 centimeter thick), and a small hand saw for the thicker ones. Then, you have to cut them a little, depending on how much they have grown. Thus, if we have one that is touching the ceiling, and as long as it is not a palm tree, its height can be reduced by about 10-20 centimeters from year to year.

Drastic pruning must be avoided; that is, it is not necessary to reduce the height of a plant by half, because most likely it will not exceed it. It is much better to go slowly, be patient, and wait for it to produce lower and lower stems.

Transplant your plants

This may be contradictory to you, because what we are talking about is preventing them from growing too much. But the truth is that when a plant is left in the same pot for years and years, it becomes etiolate; that is, its stems are lengthened and narrowed due to lack of space. This is something that happens a lot with cacti, for example, which when they reach that point give the impression that they want to "get out" of the pots.

In order for them to have a correct development, it is necessary to move them to larger pots in spring, whenever we see that the roots come out through the drainage holes, or if they have already occupied the entire pot.

Avoid composing

They are beautiful, but when you put many plants or some without knowing their adult size, in the same container, what is achieved in the end is that there is one or more that grow too driven by lack of space and the instinct for survival. This is why it is only advisable to make compositions with plants, we insist, small ones, such as succulents such as Lithops, Pleiospylos, Argyroderma, Fenestraria, Sempervivum or similar.

If you have one with trees, palms and / or other large plants, it is highly advisable to separate them carefully at the end of winter and plant them each in a pot; Or plant them together in a growing container.

We hope these tips on how to prevent indoor plants from growing too much will be helpful to you 🙂.