I recently bought a pachira which I dearly love, however, when I brought it home, many of the leaves where damaged in transit and then the poor thing developed a little bit of a fungus gnat problem. Took care of the gnats, but I'm afraid I may have pruned back the damaged areas a bit too much. Only one of the branches off the main braided trunk is showing new growth. How do I encourage the other branches to start growing again or perhaps manipulate the main braided trunk to start some new branches? All advice will be very much appreciated!! Thanks
The fungus gnats can be a sign of overwatering, so I would gently pull it out of its pot and check for root rot. Remove any damaged roots if there are any, and take it easy on the water. Good Luck!
Thanks! I already have been able to deal with those stupid gnats, but wondering more about my overpruning error!
When you say only one branch is showing new growth, I'm wondering if you pruned off all the foliage? How badly is this over-pruned? Is this a mature Pachira, or a little guy? A picture might help.
It's about 3 feet tall. I've only had it for a couple of months. It has several branches off the braided trunk, but only one of them is showing new growth. I'm afraid I probably just pruned them back too far. Hopefully you'll get a better idea of what I'm talking about from the attached pics. Thanks again!
I would take a "watch and wait" approach. There seem to be some swollen nodes on some of the shoots, so It looks like it should push some new growth. I would hold off on both fertilizer and water until it starts actively growing again. Good Luck!
Figured as much re: fertilizer but never figured to hold back on the water. I will do. Thanks very much for the advice ;-)
Just wanted to let you know that my money tree came back from a FULL pruning. I moved cross country last year. We clipped off all the branches to just a few inches about the original braided trunk. I left it in the soil it was in. It was with a moving company for about 2-3 weeks until I placed it outside in the May sunshine where it got lots of light and humidity. It was a very happy camper! It came back better than it was before, with new shoots from the braided trunk. It grew fast too. So, hopefully yours will do the same. I think they recover pretty well in this situation, considering that you can buy them as a braided trunk in a dormant stage anyway. Hope that helps! Good luck!!! ...Now if anyone can tell me why mine drops leaves all the time, now that it's indoors (after being outside for just one month), I'll be forever grateful. :) I'm thinking they're just fussy plants overall. Thanks!
Wow! That's amazing! And I've noticed this week that all of the stems, except for 2, are now showing swollen nodes! I'm very happy.. and even more encouraged by your experience, EmCole 77! Never knew you could get these guys dormant like you described. Very cool! I did see several posts about the problem you're now experiencing, so browse around! Just do an advanced search on "pachira" ... you'll find LOTS of threads, so be sure to spare some time to read through them all;-) Don't suppose its simply old growth that'll fall off eventually anyway? Other plants of mine dropped leaves when they're dealing with pests (ie. fungus gnats) in the soil. You can get a liquid (preferred) that you add to your watering can (you might want to water less frequently) or a powder that you can put on top of the soil from your local nursery that can take care of most pests living in the soil Good luck!
Hi Treena, I'm just curious how your pachira is doing? I have one about that size and I trimmed some of it's leaves. Did yours recover?
Did it ever! It's totally flourishing & I was very pleasantly surprised at just how quickly it recovered
