? About Pruning

[Prehensile]

About a week ago I posted a question showing some leaf spotting, dried ends on stems, I got a few good suggestions. After thinking on it I decided to re-pot the plant after pruning and trimming, 80% of the stems, and the root system was cut back by 50% Here are the shots, my question is after pruning and trimming, new shoots have appeared about 7 days after the surgery, is this the normal time span? You can see some of the dead stem ends in the pics should I cut these off or let the new roots grow awhile longer? I left some of the old leaves for fear of crippling the plant too much, was that a good idea or?
Thanks,

Rod

 

[PaulG]

If you have new growth (7 days is well within normal) coming, I'd let grow for awhile.
You can cut off any obviously defunct leaves, and any dried stem ends - leave a tiny
bit of brown at the tip to avoid cutting the green wood. after you have some robust
new growth, then you can prune to shape the plant and get rid of way straggly limbs
with little foliage on them. I'd say they look pretty good.

 

[LGHT]

What size pot is that? By the looks of it, your pot may be too small. I mean if that pic is after you cut the roots I think I would have simply potted "UP" instead of cutting the roots back.

 

[sicman]

is that some arizona tea in the back ground? i prefer the green tea with honey but whatever,

 

[Prehensile]

What size pot is that? By the looks of it, your pot may be too small. I mean if that pic is after you cut the roots I think I would have simply potted "UP" instead of cutting the roots back.

The pic is just before I trimmed the roots back, I only have 6 or so 5 gallon pots left, saving them for the really big plants. The one I'm using is a 3 gallon.

is that some arizona tea in the back ground? i prefer the green tea with honey but whatever,

I like the green also they make great water jugs, and thats whats in those.

 

[Dulac]

7 days sounds healthy. I'm not sure about all species and variations of peppers, but I striped Thai dragon pepper and habanero plants down to no leaves and it was cool. I think a lot of people cut their plants down to stumps when they overwinter. Peppers are very resilient. It will start growing new leaves soon enough if all its leaves were cut off.

Edit: And if those leaves were sick, it will help facilitate new growth faster when you cut them off (that way the plant doesn't waste its energy on the sick growth/leaves)

 

[LGHT]

Wow 3 gallons?? Not going to get much production using a container that small. I have found over the years the bigger the pot the better the plant. It's not true in all cases, but I wouldn't use anything under 10 gallons for a full sized pot and some get containers as big as 25 gallons.

 

[Siliman]

Yea, too bad you can't move up to 5-gallon. But by cutting the root ball down by 50%, at least you'll get some new growth action. It will eventually max out again, but in the meantime, at least it should get healthy again.

For pruning, I would follow PaulG directions, and possibly trim off some more of those very top branches if they don't show new growth.

I'm glad you busted a move on this fella....

 

[nitwit]

these are looking better than last week

does it seem the creepy brown crud is going away?

please keep us informed on the grow tip issues

if you would be so kind,

please show us a picture or two of one or two of your plants that are doing well

maybe the scorpions?