Question of the Day What’s your trimming technique?

[Art]

The most underrated skill with freshwater planted tanks! This is what separates the good from the great!

Share with us how you do it? Any pro tips/tricks?

 

[BigWave]

This is a double edged sword. You 1st have to learn how to grow plants 1st. By this I mean actually be able to trim them and they grow back. For many this is THAT big wall or hurdle to overcome. Once you achieve good growing trimming is easy.

 

[Art]

This is a double edged sword. You 1st have to learn how to grow plants 1st. By this I mean actually be able to trim them and they grow back. For many this is THAT big wall or hurdle to overcome. Once you achieve good growing trimming is easy.

I completely agree that the first step is being able to grow your plants well. Healthy plants is the foundation.

I may be in the minority but trimming plants correctly for me was much more difficult. Here’s what I mean.

You often hear, cut the top off of stems, pull out the bottom and replant the tops. Easy to say but actually hard to do because some plants will be OK with this, some won’t and some will then won’t after a few times.

Other plants prefer you to trim and leave the old stem allowing them to grow back. However, as many of you know, this often creates in multiple stems growing from the node you cut. This may be good or may be bad for your aquascaping. So if you know what you’re doing, you do this intentionally and compensate for this. If you don’t do this intentionally, it presents additional issues.

Now, if you’re going Dutch-inspired like our friend @GreggZ or @Burr740, you need to tame fast growing stems to maintain that beautiful, but limited spot you have it in. How do you think they do this?

Now, if you want to go crazy creative and design wild shapes in your plants like @Cheattha Sae-Teaw ‘s tank of the month, trimming becomes intense. He meditates before trimming.

In all honesty, trimming to me is still something I continue to learn and try to perfect.

Anyone else find it challenging?

 

[GreggZ]

I completely agree that the first step is being able to grow your plants well. Healthy plants is the foundation.

I may be in the minority but trimming plants correctly for me was much more difficult. Here’s what I mean.

You often hear, cut the top off of stems, pull out the bottom and replant the tops. Easy to say but actually hard to do because some plants will be OK with this, some won’t and some will then won’t after a few times.

Other plants prefer you to trim and leave the old stem allowing them to grow back. However, as many of you know, this often creates in multiple stems growing from the node you cut. This may be good or may be bad for your aquascaping. So if you know what you’re doing, you do this intentionally and compensate for this. If you don’t do this intentionally, it presents additional issues.

Now, if you’re going Dutch-inspired like our friend @GreggZ or @Burr740, you need to tame fast growing stems to maintain that beautiful, but limited spot you have it in. How do you think they do this?

Now, if you want to go crazy creative and design wild shapes in your plants like @Cheattha Sae-Teaw ‘s tank of the month, trimming becomes intense. He meditates before trimming.

In all honesty, trimming to me is still something I continue to learn and try to perfect.

Anyone else find it challenging?

Art this is a great topic and is under discussed in the hobby.

I've had long conversations about this with people like Barr, J. Harvey, and Wong. It's routine when we swap or talk about plants that we discuss how they respond to different techniques. The effect of good horticulture is really under valued.

But here's the thing. It really varies from plant to plant. A technique that works for one may not be suitable for others.

And some things that experienced folks consider basic are not obvious to newcomers. Take something as simple as Blyxa. It creates new planlets with no help from trimming. But at some point those need to be split and thinned or the group can begin to choke itself out.

With other plants you need to replant the stem after topping to encourage new tops to appear. With others they send out side shoots so quickly you can't keep up with them.

Some Macranda's like Caterpillar can be handled very roughly and never miss a beat. Others like Macrana Variegated need a delicate touch. Some plants don't mind being crowded, others do best with extra elbow room.

Some plants will develop very thick stems over time. At some point it's best to toss them all and start over with small plantlets and start the cycle again.

And the list goes on and on.

What would be helpful is if folks would describe their horticulture techniques for individual plants. I'll start to take some pics of plants that I am trimming and how I handle them.

It's one of the those things where there is no blanket answer, and it's not the type of thing people discuss much so it's hard information to find. Hopefully we can try to change that over time, which I think would be useful to many.

 

[Art]

Thanks,@GreggZ ! This is exactly what I wanted to highlight. This is an area that needs more information.

If we all work together with the plants we have, we can create a very helpful database for the entire community. Let me look into what’s the best way to capture this for the community.

 

[OmidNiav]

The most underrated skill with freshwater planted tanks! This is what separates the good from the great!

Share with us how you do it? Any pro tips/tricks?

View attachment 563

Trimming and appropriate placement is the hard part if you would want to have a cohesive scape. I still struggle with making a vision come to life (I know I'm not an artist). Gregg mentioned some great concepts and here are my thoughts:
1. know how the plant propagates!
2. Know growth rate in YOUR setup.
3. For stems, remove leaves in the 1-2 inch area at the bottom before planting (I sometimes leave a small bit of the leaf stalk to aid in anchoring the plant)
4. After a few rounds of trimming, some plants develop unhealthy bases. Toss and plant the tips. (Amano said 7 round bur I'm not sure where he got that number from)
5. Remove unhealthy leaves at every trimming/planting.
6. If you're doing a bunch of trimming, make sure to vacuum/clean the substrate before replanting.
7. Make sure you have the appropriate tools!

Omid

 

[Achi]

Trimming and appropriate placement is the hard part if you would want to have a cohesive scape. I still struggle with making a vision come to life (I know I'm not an artist). Gregg mentioned some great concepts and here are my thoughts:
1. know how the plant propagates!
2. Know growth rate in YOUR setup.
3. For stems, remove leaves in the 1-2 inch area at the bottom before planting (I sometimes leave a small bit of the leaf stalk to aid in anchoring the plant)
4. After a few rounds of trimming, some plants develop unhealthy bases. Toss and plant the tips. (Amano said 7 round bur I'm not sure where he got that number from)
5. Remove unhealthy leaves at every trimming/planting.
6. If you're doing a bunch of trimming, make sure to vacuum/clean the substrate before replanting.
7. Make sure you have the appropriate tools!

Omid

I totally free with all of you, very good points, this is why I got away from planting stem plants, or at least minimized the amount of stems. I have a busy schedule with work and home so limited time to enjoy my hobby. So I choose slower growing plants and try to keep them as healthy as I can. I agree with learning how to trim and I have done it before. Just learn your plants and your tank, ask questions from people that have the results you want and, learn from them.