So I picked up some young plants a few weeks ago and I'm unsure if I should trim some of the vegetation from the bottom. Also several of the younger plants seem to have gotten sun burnt. Should I trim the leaves from the bottom of the plants, and is there anything I need to do in particular about the sunburn? A couple of my plants have what seems like a new stem growing from the base under the soil. It's kinda hard to see the sun burn since we just got a shower and the leaves may be shiny and hard to see in the glare, but it's pretty bad. I have several plants that are quite bushy at the bottom and touching the soil.The ones with sunburn are 7 pot primo and Trinidad scorpion. The bushy ones are red ghost.. Thanks..
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pics Sun burn and vegetation overgrowth
- Thread starter Runaway
- Start date
@Runaway my inclination is to say no, that you should not trim any of the leaves. I've never trimmed any of my pepper leaves, even if they are sunscalded, because the plant will retain any leaves that it can use for photosynthesis and voluntarily drop any that it cannot. Did you read or hear advice somewhere about people trimming pepper leaves?
If they are sunscalded, you should bring them indoors (or at least put them in shade) for a day or two and then slowly acclimate them back outside. Think about this as a recovery period for them.
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I've read that I should trim lower leaves that are touching the soil to prevent diseases and fungus from affecting the plant, just as HerbCasa mentioned above. I wasn't talking about the sun burnt leaves.
CaneDog
Extreme Member
Looking at the Red Bhut in the first pic, there seem to be two things happening there. One is that there appears to be a second, smaller plant growing next to it's stem. Perhaps a stray seed or extra from the original transplant. The other is that those aren't "lower leaves" so much as the plant is growing additional branches from its low nodes.
I'd approach this by first trying to dig out out the smaller plant without too much root loss and put it in its own container - assuming when you dig carefully around it you confirm it is a separate plant, which is sure looks like. After transplanting the small plant, I'd keep it in the shade for a good week because of root loss from removal before starting to harden it off.
The other thing I'd do is to brush away the dirt around the bushy base of the plant and see what the stem looks like. I wouldn't want to loose all those lower branches, so I'd probably just try to remove enough dirt away from the main stem that the branches were no longer touching the dirt, perhaps removing some soil to level the overall surface in the process. It looks like they transplanted that one super deep. Hopefully not so deep that you can't keep a healthy bushy plant and gain a second one in the process!
I'd approach this by first trying to dig out out the smaller plant without too much root loss and put it in its own container - assuming when you dig carefully around it you confirm it is a separate plant, which is sure looks like. After transplanting the small plant, I'd keep it in the shade for a good week because of root loss from removal before starting to harden it off.
The other thing I'd do is to brush away the dirt around the bushy base of the plant and see what the stem looks like. I wouldn't want to loose all those lower branches, so I'd probably just try to remove enough dirt away from the main stem that the branches were no longer touching the dirt, perhaps removing some soil to level the overall surface in the process. It looks like they transplanted that one super deep. Hopefully not so deep that you can't keep a healthy bushy plant and gain a second one in the process!
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