Gadenin日本語Get the appBright but out of the direct beam
In the wild Pachira aquatica grows as an understorey and streamside tree, taking strong but filtered light. Indoors that translates to a spot within about six feet (2 m) of a window where the sky is visible but the sun does not fall directly on the leaves for hours.
A useful test costs nothing. At the brightest part of the day, hold your hand a foot above the leaves. A soft edged shadow you can still read through is right. A hard black shadow with a sharp outline means direct sun and, in summer, a risk of scorch. No visible shadow at all means the position is too dark and the plant will stretch.
| Position | What happens | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Two to four feet from an east facing window | Strong morning light, no midday beam | Ideal, keep it here |
| Behind a sheer curtain at a south facing window | All day brightness, beam broken up | Ideal, best growth rate |
| Directly in a west facing window in summer | Pale bleached patches, then papery brown centers | Move back three feet or add a curtain |
| North facing window, close in | Slow but steady, smaller leaves | Acceptable, water much less often here |
| Interior corner, over ten feet from glass | Long bare stems, leaves far apart, lower leaves shed | Too dark, move it or add a grow light |
Telling scorch from the other leaf problems
Three different problems all produce marked leaves, and the cure for one makes the others worse, so it is worth separating them before you act.
- Scorch from direct sun Pale bleached areas appear on the upper surface of only the leaves that face the window, and dry to thin brown papery patches with no yellow halo. The shaded side of the plant is untouched. Move the plant back from the glass or diffuse the light.
- Yellowing from wet compost Whole leaves go evenly yellow, starting low and on the inside where light is weakest, and feel soft. This is a watering fault, not a light fault. Moving the plant into brighter light without fixing the watering will not stop it.
- Brown crisp tips from dry air Only the very tip and edge go brown and brittle, with a narrow yellow band behind it. Common near a radiator or a heating vent in winter. Move the plant away from the airflow rather than misting it daily.
- Stretching from too little light New stems come out long and thin with wide gaps between the leaves, and the leaflets are smaller and paler than the old ones. Nothing is diseased. The plant needs a brighter position, and the stretched growth will not shorten again.
Moving it, and why leaves fall afterwards
A money tree drops leaves after a move more readily than most houseplants. It is responding to the change in light level, not to damage, and it usually sheds within one to three weeks of being moved. Given a stable position it releafs over the following couple of months.
Because of that, the worst thing you can do is keep moving it in search of the right spot. Choose a position, leave it there for at least two months, and judge the plant on the new growth rather than on the leaves it drops in the first fortnight.
- Step it toward brighter light Going straight from a dim corner into a sunny window scorches leaves that were grown in shade. Move it halfway for two weeks first, then the rest of the way. The same applies to putting it outside for summer.
- Turn it a quarter every few weeks Money trees lean into the light hard, and a braided trunk that leans stays leaning. A regular quarter turn keeps the head even and stops one side of the braid from being permanently shaded.
- Rethink the position in winter Winter light is a fraction of summer light and the sun sits lower. A spot that was perfect at midsummer can be too dark at the darkest point of winter. Move the plant closer to the glass for the cold months, but keep it away from a cold pane and off a drafty sill.
If you summer the plant outdoors, put it in full shade for the first week and never in direct afternoon sun. Bring it back in before nights fall below 55F (13C).
Adding light when the room has none
A money tree will survive in a room with only a small north window, but it will not thicken or branch there. If the position is fixed, a single full spectrum LED about eighteen inches (45 cm) above the canopy, run for ten to twelve hours a day, is enough to keep growth compact. Run it on a timer so the plant gets a genuine dark period; light around the clock does not help and stresses the plant.
What to write down
Note the date you move the plant, the window it now faces and roughly how far it stands from the glass. When leaves drop two weeks later you will know whether the move explains it. Photograph the whole plant on the same date each season from the same spot, because leaf spacing and leaf size are the two signs of a light problem that are almost impossible to judge from memory but obvious side by side.