You can prune many plants to give them a special shape or to keep them small so that they are suitable as houseplants. This absolutely does not apply to palm trees.
Can you prune indoor palms?
Answer: Indoor palms should not be pruned as this can severely affect their growth. Brown leaf tips can be carefully shortened, but completely dried leaves should be removed and further cuts avoided.
On the contrary, you can actually cause great damage to your indoor palm. Many species only have a single point of vegetation that is responsible for their growth. It is usually located in the middle of the crown.
Prune your indoor palm at this point and it will no longer grow in height. Since the lower leaves of a palm tree die over time, but no new leaves can form at the top due to cutting, your palm tree will only have a short lifespan.
Can I shorten brown leaf tips?
Brown leaves or leaf tips are certainly not a particularly attractive sight, but you shouldn't necessarily grab the secateurs straight away (€9.00 on Amazon). If a pleasant shape can be achieved by cutting back the leaf slightly, then this cut is not immediately harmful. In the future, make sure that your palm tree is watered enough and that the humidity is not too low.
If a larger part of the leaf is discolored, wait until it is completely dry and only then cut it off. Because this is how your palm tree can get the nutrients it still contains from the slowly drying leaf.
How can I limit the growth of my palm tree?
Most indoor palms grow slowly. If you have very little space, then choose a small palm tree like the cobbler palm. It only grows to around 70 cm high and only produces a few flowers. Other species grow slower if they are in a smaller pot. If this is desired, you should only repot your palm tree when the roots outgrow the pot.
The most important things in brief:
- never prune the growing point
- cut off wilting leaves until they are completely dry
- The growth can be influenced by the pot size
Tip
The indoor palms are one of the few plants that take a careless cut very seriously. Remove completely dry leaves and refrain from any further cutting.
