To trim or not

[Rudles]

After the initial diatom bloom my Scarlet Temple was hit especially hard. They are making a comeback though. A lot of leaves still look sickly. Should I trim them or will they naturally be replaced?

[Dwayne Brown]

I would trim them to allow the plant to conserve more energy to produce new leaves and not fight the death of a few others

[ARMYVET]

If you have snails...they will do the trimming for you.

[Mmiller2001]

Always trim off unhealthy portions of plants.

[Rudles]

Thank you  :)

[tolstoy21]

Trimming is always good as it encourages branching and thickening, as new shoots should come out of the nodes forming at the base of leaf pairs. For aquatic stem plants, you can also replant the healthy tips you've pruned to also increase the mass of plants into a nice dense hedge (kind of a double bang for the buck situation).

Many plants (aquatic and terrestrial) want to grow tall rather than 'shrub' out. You can encourage a fuller look through pruning back your plants regularly at points where you want them to branch out depending on the look you're going for.

As others have suggested, removing damaged leaves also helps the plants expend their energy on newer growth rather than using it to cope with damage.  

Edited June 21, 2021 by tolstoy21

[Rudles]

Awesome! Thank you  :)