How to Encourage Branching in Rubber Tree Plants

Rubber timber, Ficus elastica, are appreciated for his or her large, dramatic, leathery leaves. However they’ve a fame for turning into a bit leggy once they’re grown indoors.

After we maintain the timber inside, they often stay of their juvenile type, which may imply decreased branching and extra upward development.

This may be disappointing, particularly because the plant grows taller and taller as an alternative of filling out with branches and foliage.

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Nevertheless, it’s potential to alter this development behavior and encourage your rubber tree to department out.

In the event you want an summary of find out how to develop and look after rubber tree crops, learn our information.

Then, come again right here and we’ll talk about find out how to encourage branching in rubber timber.

Right here’s what I’ll cowl:

Rubber Tree Progress Behavior

In the event you take a look at a rubber tree within the wild, you possibly can see that mature specimens might be properly branched with large, dense canopies.

However after we develop F. elastica indoors as houseplants, they will look decidedly completely different since they continue to be in a juvenile type. What number of rubber timber have you ever seen which have a single stem? Most likely quite a bit.

Loads of “bushy” rubber timber that you simply see on the retailer are sometimes a bunch of particular person specimens clustered into one pot to present a bushier, fuller look.

There are a number of causes that rubber timber fail to department. These rising indoors usually don’t obtain sufficient gentle, or at the very least not sufficient gentle to develop large and bushy.

This causes them to have sluggish, stunted development and keep in an immature type.

As a result of they tolerate low gentle, many individuals take the chance to make use of rubber crops in darkish areas of the house. I do know I’ve accomplished it. F. elastica will develop completely properly in this sort of publicity, however they have an inclination to develop leggy and gained’t department.

As they age, they may drop decrease leaves, making them look much more sparse.

So how will we repair this and encourage the rubber tree to department? Firstly, it’s a good suggestion to alter the atmosphere to make sure the plant is receiving what it wants, and secondly, cautious pruning.

There’s additionally a 3rd methodology, often called notching which may help branching.

Environmental Adjustments

Whether or not you determine to additionally do some pruning or not, which we’ll talk about under, you possibly can encourage branching by altering the plant’s atmosphere.

A very powerful issue is to supply further gentle. Whereas rubber timber can thrive in low gentle circumstances, if you wish to encourage branching, extra gentle is necessary.

Set the plant close to a window the place it can obtain direct daylight for at the very least 4 hours per day.

Ideally, you’ll give it morning gentle as afternoon gentle may be too harsh for a plant that isn’t used to it.

If you wish to place your specimen someplace that it’ll obtain afternoon gentle, be sure to introduce it to the stronger gentle progressively.

Transfer it into the brand new space a half hour at a time. Which means you’ll take it into the brand new spot for a half hour after which transfer it again to its unique spot. The following day, add one other half hour and so forth till it may stay in its new space.

Whereas these crops favor to be a bit root sure in a comparatively small container, you may wish to change out the soil in case you haven’t repotted or refreshed the soil for some time.

As soil will get older, it turns into compacted and the vitamins leach out.

Take away the plant from its container and gently brush away all of the soil from across the roots. When you’re in there, prune off any damaged or useless roots. Clear out the outdated pot and repot the plant in recent, new soil.

In case your plant is in fairly a small container, it’s undoubtedly price upgrading to a pot one dimension bigger. In the event you see roots circling the inside of the pot or coming out of the soil or by the drainage holes, it’s undoubtedly time to maneuver up a dimension.

With further vitamins from refreshed potting soil and the addition of a lot of daylight, your plant ought to begin to put out loads of new development.

Pruning

Along with offering extra solar, you possibly can encourage the plant to department out utilizing some cautious pruning cuts.

Whenever you’re pruning for this goal, you don’t wish to watch for the dormant season, you wish to do the trimming through the rising season as an alternative.

If you wish to prune through the semi-dormant season, that’s nice, it gained’t damage something, however it can take longer for the brand new development to develop.

Take a look at the spot the place you need the branching to begin and establish a leaf node. That’s the place the leaf emerges from the department. If the leaves have fallen off, search for the little lumps the place the leaves had been rising beforehand.

Take a clear pair of pruners and snip the stem off a couple of quarter of an inch above the leaf node at a slight angle. That’s it!

Now, as an alternative of manufacturing a single stem in that space, the plant will produce two, three, and generally 4 new stems proper there.

Study extra about pruning rubber timber in our information.

Don’t neglect it’s also possible to use the pruned stems to propagate extra crops. So long as the slicing is six inches or longer, you possibly can plant it.

Rubber timber take extraordinarily properly this fashion, although they’re a bit sluggish to begin producing development, and you may have new crops to get pleasure from or give away.

Now, all you must do is wait. The plant ought to begin sending out new development within the space inside just a few months.

Notching

Ficus species have the flexibility to ship out new development when they’re wounded.

You possibly can make the most of this by utilizing a method known as notching to encourage branching.

Basically, you’ll make a lower within the bark of the stem or trunk that can trigger the plant to ship therapeutic development hormones to the realm.

With sufficient time, that wounded spot will begin branching out.

To do that, placed on some gloves and seize a sanitized knife. Search for a naked space of stem between two leaf nodes.

Make a horizontal lower about an inch above the node, deep sufficient that it cuts simply by the bark into the sunshine coloured materials beneath. The lower ought to prolong throughout half of the department. Make a second lower a couple of quarter of an inch above that.

Scrape the bark away between the 2 cuts so the cambium layer beneath is uncovered.

That is finest accomplished within the spring or summer time when the plant is actively rising, however you are able to do it any time of 12 months. Worst case situation is that the notch gained’t type any new development.

After you’ve made your notches, you simply want to attend. Preserve caring for the plant as you’ll usually, and new development will emerge under the notches.

Department Out a Bit!

Rubber timber could be a bit leggy, particularly when they’re grown indoors. However we will repair it with pruning, a change of atmosphere, or notching.

Earlier than it, you’ll be having fun with your large, bushy plant.

Do you want any further recommendations on find out how to deal with a very tough state of affairs? Tell us what’s up within the feedback part under and we’ll do our greatest that can assist you out.

And for extra details about rising rubber timber, try these guides subsequent:

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