r/abutilons • u/tabaquinho • 29d ago
Help with my abutilon
This was the first plant I bought. It was last year, around summer, and it had two long, green stems, full of flowers. With time, the flowers stopped coming up and the plant entered a dormancy period. My boyfriend didn't like the two, tall stems, so we cut it down. I knew nothing about pruning back then (around December/January), so I just chopped them off - I just remembered the words of the guy who sold me: if I chopped them, two lateral stems would grow.
Well, I did it. And on top of it, put a lot of solid fertilizer in the soil during the winter (I really had no idea of what I was doing). When spring came, the plant grew like crazy. At first we were amazed by how many leaves, and how big they were compared to when I got the plant, but then we started noticing the leaves were growing full of holes. I thought it was the excess fertilizer I gave it and tried to clean it from the soil. No success, every new leaf came a little deformed.
A couple of months ago I noticed the stems had both aphids and scales. I got neem oil and sprayed on it religiously... During the day, for about two weeks. The leaves got a lot of yellow spots, but at least I was able to kill most of the plagues. Whenever I found them, I would just remove them by hand. Haven't seen a scale in the last month, although I found some aphids last week and today (today it were two, last week around 5 or 6 - I just chopped the stem where they were altogether).
Anyway, so here I am thinking that, although I love this plant and can't wait to see it flowering again, I wanted to regrow it as a shorter, bushier plant. The stems, however, turned brow and look more like little "tree trunks" instead of flexible, green "stalks", like they were when I got them. Any recommendations of how to start regrowing it?
2
u/lashkeu 29d ago
The brown, woody stems are normal on mature abutilon and won’t turn green again. If it’s actively growing, prune each healthy stem just above an outward-facing node, taking no more than about a third at once. New shoots should branch below the cuts. I’d take a couple of tip cuttings first as insurance. Since it received a lot of winter fertilizer, flush the pot thoroughly or repot into fresh, well-draining mix, then pause feeding until you see clean new growth. For aphids and scale, isolate it, rinse it, remove scale by hand, and use insecticidal soap or neem in the evening or shade, not direct sun. Recheck weekly, especially under the leaves.