Pruning Succulents- Tips For Maintaining Your Succulent Arrangement

Succulents are well known for their diversity in shapes, colors, and sizes. They’re also known for not being needy plants. For maintaining a healthy and beautiful succulent isn’t a time-consuming process. However, your plants will need some extra love from time to time, as they grow. Pruning succulents from time to time can prevent rot, encourage new grow and help your succulent live longer.

Knowing most of the succulents are slow-growers, a lot of people get surprised by their succulent arrangments not looking neat and tidy after some time passes. Succulents in arrangments grow slowly but surely, and they will eventually overgrow their pots. Because of this, youll need to maintain and prune your arrangements from time to time. Pruning is a pretty simple task, but it’s always helpful to know some tips and tricks to make it even easier.

When to Prune Your Succulents?

You can prune your succulents anytime you like. However, the best time for maintenance is at the beginning of their growing season. If you choose to prune your succulents at the end of the growing season, you may not see new growth as quickly but it will happen slowly and continue once they start actively growing again. To pick the best time of pruning, you have to know what kind of succulents you have. While most of them are summer growers, there is quite a number of those growing in the winter. Pruning in the spring will allow you to take care of any stretching happening in your arrangements due to your succulents being indoors during colder months. This will also help you refresh arrangments without having to buy new plants.

Your Succulents Still Need Some Regular Care

As your succulents grow, lower leaves will dry out and die over time. This is not anything you should be alarmed by. It’s just a natural circle of life. However, to help your succulent growing the best way possible, you should remove those dead leaves from time to time. If you leave them on the stem for too long the plant can begin to rot, since the soil will have a harder time drying out. Just simply pull away dried out leaves with your fingers. This way you can also help encourage new growth along the stem.

For keeping your succulent arrangment healthy, you should also remove any debris from between the plants. This will especially do good for your plants if they’re placed outside, as leaves or sticks often can be blown into the arrangement. When you remove any material that shouldn’t be in the arrangment, you`re preventing bugs from infecting the plants. You should remove dead leaves and debris as often as you can, but at a minimum in both spring and fall.

Get Yourself Proper Pruning Tools

For a successful pruning, all you need is quality and sharp cutting tools. One of the best options is bonsai scissors since they’re very sharp and light-weighted.  Whatever tool you decide to use, make sure it’s completely clean and sterile before cutting your succulents. This will prevent any infections and diseases from being transferred between plants.

Besides a good cutting tool, you may find some additional things handy while pruning. Long handle tweezers will help you easily remove dead leaves from places that are hard to reach with bare hands. You can also use some chopsticks to loosen up the soil when it’s needed.

Start Pruning Your Succulents

Now that you have proper tools, its time to start pruning. The first thing you need to do is to decide which of your succulents you want to leave intact and which ones need their heads chopped off. When you look at your arrangment, youll easily spot succulents that are healthy and thriving. You can also recognize ones that need to be refreshed. While pruning, you should focus on plants that look little out of control and stretched. Just cut off the tops of your succulents and leave the cutting to callus. You can use them for filling your arrangments or make some new ones. however, try to cut all of the heads at the same time, to allow them to grow back evenly.

When pruning your succulent arrangement, you`ll need to remove all of the dying plants from it. Leaving dying or already dead succulents in your arrangement can cause a problem for other plants. They decay and may spread diseases or even rot to the other succulents in the arrangement. Even if you see that succulent started do dry out, it’s much safer to remove them from arrangment completely and replant it in another container.

Use The Cuttings You’ve Got

Pruning your succulent arrangement will provide you a lot of cuttings which you can use to fill the arrangment again. Let your cuttings to dry out for a day. This way youll prevent any rotting of the new plant. Fill any holes and gaps where plants were removed. For keeping your arrangement neat and tidy longer, you can pack your succulents tight. Succulents in tight arrangements will grow slower.

Another helpful tip for replanting your cuttings and keeping the arrangement in great shape for much longer is to use straight stems. If your cuttings have curved ends, you`ll want to cut them off so you have a straight end to place in the ground. This will affect the way the new plant is growing from the beginning.

Consider Some Top Dressing

Even after planting your cuttings, your arrangement can still have some gaps. The top dressing is a great and easy way to fill the gaps and give your arrangement professional finish. Top dressing is made of decorative rocks used to cover the soil after you are done planting your succulents. If your arrangement still doesn’t look that great after pruning, adding some top dressing can clean the look and bring it all together. You can match the pot or succulent. There are top dressings in various colors, so the possibilities are endless.

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