Gadenin日本語Get the appThe year at a glance
A money tree has one growing season and one long pause. Everything that involves cutting, moving or disturbing roots belongs in the first half of the year while the plant can respond. Everything in the cold half is about doing less, particularly with the watering can.
Read the table by room temperature rather than by month, since a heated room and an unheated one run on different calendars, and the plant responds to warmth and light rather than to the date.
| Season | Watering | Feeding | Main jobs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early spring, room warming past 60F (15C) | Every 7 to 10 days as growth restarts | Start at half strength once new leaves show | Repot if needed, prune to shape, take cuttings |
| Late spring to summer, above 75F (24C) | Every 5 to 7 days, check the pot each time | Balanced feed monthly at half strength | Turn the pot, watch for scale and spider mite, shade from midday sun |
| Autumn, cooling to 60 to 70F (15 to 21C) | Stretch to every 10 to 14 days | Last feed as growth slows, then stop | Bring any outdoor plant in before 55F (13C) nights, move nearer the window |
| Winter, 50 to 60F (10 to 15C) | Every 3 to 4 weeks, tepid water, mornings only | None | Keep off cold sills and away from heaters, no pruning, no repotting |
Spring is the working season
As soon as the room holds above 60F (15C) and you see the first new leaf, the plant can heal wounds and push roots. This is the window for everything disruptive, and doing these jobs in the right order saves the plant a lot of work.
- Repot first, if it needs it Do the roots before the top. One size up, fresh open mix, same planting depth. Then leave the plant undisturbed for two to three weeks before you cut anything, so it deals with one shock at a time.
- Prune two or three weeks later Shorten the longest shoots by a third to a half, cutting just above a node, and remove anything crossing through the middle. Never take more than a third of the plant in one season.
- Turn the prunings into cuttings Any shoot with three or four leaves will root. Let the cut dry a few hours, then insert it into a half perlite mix and keep it warm and bright.
- Restart feeding gently Wait until new leaves are actually expanding, then feed a balanced liquid fertilizer at half the label rate once a month. Full strength feed on a plant that is only just waking scorches the roots.
Summer is about not overdoing it
In warmth and long days a money tree grows fast, and the temptation is to water and feed accordingly. Keep feeding to once a month at half strength, and keep watering tied to the state of the pot rather than to the heat outside, because a plant in a cool shaded room still dries slowly even at the peak of summer.
Watch the leaf undersides and the joints in summer, since this is when scale and spider mite arrive. Fine webbing between the leaflets and a stippled dusty look on the upper surface is mite. Small brown limpets that do not brush off are scale. Both are far easier to deal with in the first fortnight than in the second month, so a weekly look under the leaves is worth more than any treatment.
If you move the plant outdoors for the summer, take it out in full shade and leave it there for a week before allowing it any brighter position. Leaves grown indoors scorch within a single afternoon of direct sun.
Autumn and winter decide the plant
The commonest way a money tree is lost is not a cold room. It is being watered through the cold months at the rate that suited summer. Below 60F (15C) the plant stops taking water up, the compost stays saturated, the roots suffocate and the trunk goes soft at the base, and the yellowing leaves that show up in midwinter were determined weeks earlier.
So make the reduction deliberate rather than gradual by accident. Halve the frequency when the room settles into the sixties Fahrenheit, halve it again when it drops into the fifties, and check the pot before every single watering rather than assuming.
- Move it before the cold arrives Get any plant that summered outside back indoors before nights reach 55F (13C). Below about 50F (10C) leaves are shed wholesale and cold damage on the trunk does not heal.
- Move it closer to the window Winter light indoors is a small fraction of summer light. Bring the plant nearer the glass, but not touching a cold pane and never onto a sill above a radiator.
- Keep it out of moving air Drafts from a door and hot dry air from a vent both cause sudden leaf drop. A stable spot with still air matters more in winter than a slightly brighter one.
- Do nothing else No feeding, no pruning, no repotting until the room warms again. A wound made in winter sits open for months, and fresh compost around dormant roots simply stays wet.
Keeping a record that pays off
Write down each watering date and the room temperature at the time, the date you repotted and into what size of pot, every pruning with which strand of the braid you cut, and the first date you saw any pest. Also note the date any leaf yellowed or dropped. Almost every money tree problem is diagnosed by looking backwards, because the cause sits one to three weeks before the symptom, and a year of dated entries turns an anxious guess into a straightforward answer about which season in your particular home is the one that needs care.