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You've taught me how to water, how to prune, how to root prune, and so much more - you are basically like a father to me now, so I'll be expecting birthday gifts from now on 😁

I don't think I'll be stressed if my head was cut off. On the contrary, I'll be stress-free 😂 Joke aside, great video!

Tip: Always research your plant before cutting it, some like basil need to be cut only above a node of leaves or else they won't grow back

Love the commitment involved in making videos like this with one year ago follow ups. It’s great to see the true impact of what you tried

"Be bold, bite the bullet, and make the cut." Peter Chan owner/founder of Herons Bonsai, London's premiere bonsai nursery. It most certainly is a "leap of faith" when making drastically hard pruned cuts, especially when it's taken so long to grow and, in the case of bonsai, can cost hundreds of dollars. When done INTELLIGENTLY your plant will rejuvenate and become the thriving and enjoyable plant you've desired! It's also good to apply a sealant to the wounds to reduce the loss of sap. Great video my friend, keep it up!

I’ve been binge-watching your videos and I have to say you are probably my favourite “plant KZfaqr” so far. There are great channels with great content but, as a “first time plant parent” sometimes the “perfection” they portray makes me feel overwhelmed and discouraged. The “chill” vibe I get with your content makes me quite excited and eager to learn 📖🤓 Looking forward to more content 😊

I cut my plant as stated in the video and it died! Now, I don't have to waste my time with it anymore. Thank you for the tips!

WhenI was very little, my mom had several rose bushes in our yard. Every year , after flowering, she would cut them WAY back. They would come back beautifully every time!

I once cut off the top of my rubber tree too, though far less drastically than you did. I wanted it to make side branches instead of growing up with its one stem only. And side branches it did make! Four of them!

I did the same to my rubber plant. Took a while but it exploded in all directions and looks so much better now.

I did this to a fiddle leaf fig that had reached our ceiling a year or two ago. It only had one LONG stem. I hacked it below the halfway point, then I created cuttings from the top portion. The base has branched and now has a lot of leaves. All the cuttings have formed individual plants. So, now I have a branched main plant, instead of one long stem, and a bunch of baby plants.

I root pruned my massive spider plant last week after watching your video about it and it has perked up fantastically.

I had to hard prune my lemon lime philodendron because it was actively dying and I couldn't figure out why. I just love this plant so much, I was pretty disappointed. I ended up cutting off the good parts and planted them. So far it appears the cuttings I saved are doing well and one is showing new growth!

A man who knows his onions ,big time.

before you cut the head off your tree for tilting slightly you might want to consider metal wire for binding it straight. this is done to bonsai to shape them and works just fine. if the stem is too tough you can just bind one end of the plant to the pot and pull it straight. i use this method to get a funny S-shape on my shefflera stem for aestetics.

I did this to two of my older crotons that were getting a little scarce in foliage on top and they pushed out a bunch of new shoots from the bottom of the stem. It's definitely scary but a great tool to know if you refuse to ever give up on a plant like me!

I like your bold approach, and they way you've explained these process well.

Around a month ago I hard pruned my dracaena marginata, and now it's pushing branches from four additional spots. Highly recommended 👍🏾

A lot of plants can be propagated from cuttings. I did it with a Dracaena marginata “tricolor” several years ago after it had grown to over 3 feet tall. Now I have 2 of them together in the pot. Succulents with stems can be propagated this way too. (You can also propagate some succulents from leaves, but they take years to mature.)

This video came at a perfect time for me. I was about to prune my jade back without giving it a through dry-out time before cutting and then watering afterwards. I really needed this one! Thanks, sir for your generosity in sharing your tips in this video.

You sir, are doing gods work. So glad i found your channel! Ive been loving your content and learning a lot! Thank you and keep up the amazing content 🙏

did this to a cherry laurel last year cut in half and put the top half in another pot and 1 year later the top of the old plant is now regrowing and the old bottom half is bushing out new leaves and slowly starting to regrow to the top where I cut it. Amazing to see it coming back to life

Ha ah! I love The one direction quick view, you’re great. I’ve listened to your plants tips (cutting the roots) and my formerly root bound plants are thriving! So great! Thank you

I appreciate that you show how your plant look a year on after any alterations. it gives me hope i just might not kill if I prune my plants.

I'm thinking of doing this to my regular Ficus Elastica. It has two really nice and healthy side stems, but they're pretty much growing in the same direction. It makes the plant look wonky, and has it leaning quite a lot to that side as well. As a bonus for 'beheading' my rubber plant, I can gift my sister or niece with one of the cuttings, perhaps even both of them 😄 Thank you for the video Have a nice weekend everyone

I did this to my focus ruby several months ago. It's coming back beautifully.

Very nice! In Bonsai we call this type of work a "trunk chop" It creates taper and movement in the tree making it look older but in miniature!

Another very thorough, excellent video! Thank you!

Love this video, makes me feel optimistic about some of the plant rescues I have that need some harder pruning. Thanks 👏

I think I need to do this to my fiddle leaf… it’s got two gangly looking stems with about 7 leaves each. And they’re dropping by the week even though I haven’t changed anything about how I care for it. I think it’s time today.

As always, great advice. Plants are a lot more resilient than many thank. Thanks for the video, 👍

Thanks Mr Sheffield for those important information.

I cut my lanky curry leaf , at the top, chop chop. I got a bushy little plant now.

I just cut one of my 7feet philodendrons in half haha. I’m so excited to see how the bottom half reacts.

Love your videos, they make me chuckle!! 😄

A year ago, I notched and pruned my ficus elastica tree, I have 3 types and all of them produced multiple branches in no time....! Best decision I made 😁

I love cutting back my crotons, coleus and my favorite Hawaiian T a propagating the cuttings. Yes the plants looks soooo much better too.

I was waiting for you to drop a joke about the Queen of Hearts 😂. Oh well, next time!

Thank for this great class about pruning

I did the same to mine. But whenever I saw a new branch coming out is not the way I like, I wait until it's 10" long and has 3-4 leaves, then I cut it plant it another pot.. I succeeded twice but failed last year as the branch was wilted. Then when my original plants need repotting I also plant the propagated branch( having healthy roots) along side it..

Thank you my dear ♥️

I love your videos. Oh! I wanted to let you know that you informed and encouraged me when I didn’t know what my plant was (the Birken). It’s doing great and putting out another leaf. I’ve had 3 since I’ve owned it. (Since autumn or early winter.) anyway, I just chopped the top off my dragon tree (very young,only about 8 inches tall when I cut it). I’m gambling on it splitting into two tops. I hope I didn’t mess up.

A very informative video. Thank you.

Thanks for this excellent, approachable content! I have a poinsettia (rescued from work after Christmas about five years ago) that has gotten very leggy - too tall and just a few leaves in a bunch at the top. Now having watched your videos, I'm guessing it needs both a root prune and a hard prune. Since it's May as I'm writing this, I'll start with the hard prune described in this video and maybe save the root prune until winter rolls around and the plant has had time to recover from the hard prune.

So true. I have had to do that several times. Either by an accident or because the plant just needed a fresh start. 💜👍🏾

imagine growing up and someone doesn't like the way you're growing and cut you in half

Not sure if someone’s asked, but can you propagate the cuttings? Especially the rubber plants. Curious about that since I have a new baby rubber plant and would like to learn more. Really glad I found your channel!

I just hard pruned my croton and I really felt scared of it specially since it's my favourite so it just felt wrong, this video helped me understand the process a little bit more and avoid some mistakes, thank you so much, I love your content!

I would recommend to use keiki paste on any node you want new branch to come. It really works😊

Thank you so much this just immensely helped me

90% of my plants are throne-less so I do the soft pruning using my fingers to pluck or pull back the leaves to break off naturally. I only use the cutting pliers on my periwinkle flowers t use them at my alters. I had noticed they do grow more and are fluffier than those plants I never cut so dramatically. Thank you for your channel on to care for our green babies.

i use to work on a garden in trinidad it was on the mountain. walking in the dirt road i spot a plant, it was about a 1ft tall , it had white on the leave it had a pod , the stem was so solid it felt like wire or steel , i think it it felt like a 1/4 inch steel. i never saw it before, or saw anyone with it , i did see 1 more on a next hill side

You can use keiki paste on the nodes where leaves have fallen off on ficus plants. They grow branches where you apply this paste. Brilliant way of shaping plants without sacrificing healthy parts.

YES! this is what i was looking for a week ago! thanks! perfect for spring! I cut head off my silvr sword philo to branch it out, i got three shoots! I'm very excited to say the least, it was stressful for about 6 weeks tho!

If my head was cut off, stress will no longer be a problem to me. 😵

I had a plant about 6 weeks and got a bit to high one day and cut all the leaves off at the stem I wish I’d have left it to see if it would have grown again

Yesterday I chopped off the top of my money tree, I accidentally overwatered it a few times and it was looking terrible so I decided to propagate the last few healthy leaves in order to save it before it’s too late, but I’m also keeping the leftover stem to see if it’ll regrow anything. Sometimes it’s fun to experiment!

My rubber plant bled so much after I pruned it last year I started to cry I felt guilty, almost like I had hurt it, recently I found a piece of tree trunk in the park and I placed it at the root of the rubber after a while the leaves started turning yellow and falling off, I may have gotten it sick by doing that, so I'm gonna prune it again, following your instructions and hopefully all will be well, I don't wanna loose my plant.....🌷

I just started working as a gardener at a big garden store that also does winter storage for potted tropical and sub-tropical plants. Mostly these come from bars and restaurants that use them simply as decoration for their outdoor seating, and nobody working at those places is employed as a gardener, so watering is all they ever get from their owners. There's a couple of customers where I'll be calling the owners to ask we can do some serious downsizing on their plants. I've been doing a few deliveries with our delivery drivers, and getting a highly fragile plant through squeezes between houses and garages that are only a third as wide as the plants is just a terrible day at work for everyone involved.

Thanks, that was helpful, especially with your example. I have a ficus elastica that I have had since '02, it has grown slowly and steadily with 10 stems going in all different directions. It is quite bushy, but getting wide and in the way of some other plants in my bay window. I've been considering pruning and propagating the cuttings, but wasn't sure if I could cut it back to the woody parts. Apparently I can.

"I knew if I didn't correct its course..." it would grow into an unruly, defiant teenager up to no good and failing at school.

I am very inexperienced. I hard pruned a ficus bonsai (curtain) that I have had for 7 years. I thought it was a goner.... It was perpetually droopy, yellow and when I would water it, the runoff would be red/dark brown (root rot). I cleaned up the roots, cleaned the pot, gave it fresh potting mix and hard pruned it so it looks like a bare dead tree. I had read after I did this that plants need leaves and without leaves plants will die (so I thought). I initially thought I had killed it, as it stayed in that bare state for several weeks. Mind you I did this in February. Right when I nearly gave up hope I saw tiny small green buds (end of March). Those buds quickly turned into freshly green stems and leaves (April). My plant is now bushier and better than ever!

My young apple had rust or some disease so I lopped it in half so there’s just a stick and now it’s sprouting all over and much better shape !

I recently had to hard prune the crap out of a marble Pothos that I had in one of my arid terrariums, it clearly didn't like the dry conditions so it was all saggy. I cut the whole thing into four big cuttings, and got rid of the old roots. I put the cuttings in water and basically restarted the entire plant and so far it's been doing much better

One of my oldest plants is a 15+ y/o rubber tree that I waited way too long to prune. It wasn't until it was hitting the ceiling that I finally did it. It's branching out finally but it still has to be supported by a PVC pole.

Thanks for all the great advice!! I’m thinking of doing this to my mature Pilea but don’t know if I can bring myself to! (The consolation being at least I can grown another Pilea from the part I cut off!)

Thank you for all the useful information, I learned so much from you and your videos gave me so much confidence to push my limits 🙏🏽. I just got my first Ficus Elastica Ruby, $5 from a grocery store 😁. So cheap because it was in a very bad shape. I followed your instructions and it thriving uncontrollably 😅. It has 4 stems and the leaves start to overlap. After seeing the results in this video, I might cut the 2 new stems and propagate it. It will be a new experiment for me. Fingers crossed 🤞😄. Again thank you 🙏🏽

Thank you Sir ♥️

You can also fine a node, slide it 1/2 into the trunk just below a node, insert a small piece of plastic, and it should activate the node. This way you have a bit more control over where the plant grows a new node.

🤣 his house looks already as a jungle! That's evidence that it works! 🌱🌿😁

What a fantastic channel!

My cat knocked over my monstera that I just planted after saving it from root rot & growing new roots from a propagated portion of it. I was so proud I successfully saved it & propagated new, healthy roots! The monstera essentially snapped in half, leaving its new & freshly repotted roots separated from its leaves. I left the stump in the soil, hoping the healthy roots will mean more leaves will shoot up eventually. I also took the leaves portion to propagate once again. I hope this works! I was very upset that this accident happened. I have not been having the best luck with what started as my one monstera plant. I do have a healthy version still from the first propagation after the original plant got root rot. So if these parts of the snapped plant live, I will have three little monstera plants instead of the one big one I began with. I love monsteras, so I don’t mind them duplicating on me, but I feel like it will be ages before I have the growth I desire on any of them. I found your video & am relieved to see ot might work, even if I have to wait until spring to see results. I’m keep watering Stumpy in the mean time 🥲

You should show how to air layer before doing a big lop off like this. What did you do with the top part?

A week ago I hard pruned my aglaonema. I didn't care for properly when I first got it two years ago so it grew up to be very leggy. When I cut the head off, there was still too much stem to leave behind so I chopped off the middle part as well and put it in a tube with perlite just to see what happens. There are no roots yet, but it has green buds all over it! I'm so curious if this stem piece would actually develop into a normal plant. Pretty sure this won't work on plants with wood-like stems though 😅

I used to do this to my bud plants lol

I cut my rubber tree a year ago and its the best ive ever done for that plant

" One Direction " And the real OD pic pops out 😆

Yes, you do good vidoes!

This is a good idea trim the plants

Boa noite, ótimas dicas 🌺🏵🌸🌼

what about repotting it on angle .. and might do some good.. take off lower leaves grow tasler and topos to make go outwards.

I learned so much from this! I have a few cacti (I think they're Cereus) that have been growing tall/lopsided, are they able to be cut on the main stalk as well?

I was recently forced to do the same thing to my lemon tree. Tonnes of new branches coming from the stump now.

instructions unclear, cut heads off sunflowers.

A video about propagating hydrangea ?

Damn.Even plants have RNG elements when growing.

After you prune any rubber plant better than keeping it indoor at the brightest spot shift it outdoors in full sun I did the same after pruning my plant It had only 1 long leggy stem so I pruned it ,today just today 4 new shoots came from every side😆 after some leaves come shift it in indoors again good idea Tip From (HY Greens LTD)

Hi Mr Shiffield Jennifer from Trinidad do you have any video on the Fiddle Leaf plant and if so can you send the link for me thank you. Great video as usual I love trimming back my plants here in d tropics they do great when pruned especially my roses they love it. Hey yr words are pretty harsh lol some ppl might get scared just by yr words like "decapitate" lol so be careful they never want to prune their plants again 😂 😂. Thanks agqin God bless stay safe stay bless keep smiling

I was waiting for you to mention propagating the top cut after hard pruning but it never came. Please tell me you propagated that Elastica top cut!

I have a 15 year old rubber plant it turned into a jungle in the yard😂😂😂 The more I cut its branches the bigger it gets and fights back and now I know why😂😂😂😂😂

The one direction picture got me giggling 😂🤣

I lost all my leaves on my rubber plant last year (thrips) it was just a stick. I cut or should i say slashed just above where all the leaves was and now it has branched out on each one of those cuts with several leaves on each (not one leaf like before). So if you wanted growth further down or the opposite side you could try that method to encourage growth.

@Sheffield Made Plants - You might want to try the 'notching' method in order to encourage branching on your Ficus elastica. :) Cheers!

Thank you so much for your advice!!! Do you have videos about how to take care of a hibiscus? I struggle to keep it over the winter. They start dying at the end of November, I found out that these are tropical plants, but maybe there is some advice on how to keep them for many years?

Hi am new to the channel and already a fan. 👍 Naturally i want to take a bit of care for my houseplants now that i know what i can do. So my question is, fist the root pruning and then the hard prune or the other way around? I guess both at once would be a bit harsh ✂️

Just found your brilliant vlogs ; can you please do one on indoor jasmine I had one that was in flower on a wire hoop ; what do I do now it’s stoped flowering?

My rubber plant is now 8 feet tall and yes it's dropping a little but I just supported by tieing it in opposite direction

I love doing it to jade plants I stuck a leaf in soil it got roots their amazing decapitated a tall one I had the cutting grew like a weed

My snake plant has become huge. It has gotten so big that it is very hard to manage its maintenance. I'm not sure what to do with it. It is over 9 years old and very sentimental to me. This video has a lot of good advice. I sort of smirk when he demonstrates his tips with small snake plants. I ,in no way, think I know more than a professional plant grower. I just would like to see him using a bigger snake plant example.