You can prune any time, but early summer is probably the best time. Shattering? Not in the dictionary of hort terms, either - at a loss .....

Al

Hi Al,

Happy Birthday to you. I wondered exactly the same thing: what's shattering?

I've also never seen this plant in bloom so I'd like to ask Catwolf, could you pls. provide pix?

Thank you for your interest. I have taken photos of the plant. Let me know if you have a problem with the link.

Shattering is a term I read on another site while trying to save this plant. I'm losing 3 - 4 branches a week. They turn yellow and drop off. I think I was over watering when I first got the plant, and I had it in a dark location. It now gets some direct early morning light and bright indirect the rest of the day. Temperature ranges from 68 to 78. I am misting it to provide humidity. I really love this plant. I want it to thrive.

Here is a link that might be useful: Photos on Flickr

What your experiencing is called "die back". It is a common response due to some form of stress. "Shattering" is a term used in horticulture to describe the breaking or shattering of grass inflorescence causing the seeds to fall off. The soil for your ming aralia should never be dried out completely between waterings. Always make sure the soil stays a little moist but not wet or soggy as this will cut off the oxygen to the roots and kill your plant. That being said, unless you left the soil saturated for a week or more I would guess it was the dark room you put it in. If a plant cannot produce enough sugar from photosynthesis to keep all of it's tissues alive it will begin to die back every time. Die back starts at tips of branches and moves inward and can occur at one or several areas at once on your plant. If you are experiencing yellowing out and a loss of foliage on the bottom of your plant, that is abscission due to a lack of light reaching those leaves rendering them useless to the plant. Giving your aralia a well lit or sunny area will probable solve your problem. When you prune your aralia it is best to prune it while it is in a vegetative state and not dormant; but you can prune it while its dormant as long as you don't remove too much foliage. If you want a flush of branches to be produced on a bare area, you can also bend the branches of your ming aralia back and forth above the area you want filled in to cause minor damage which will activate the nodes below; but make sure not to crack them. Aralias respond well to this. Hope this helps and happy growing :)

that's a great tip on inducing growth!
also I've never seen aralia bloom, very interesting. how old is the plant?
this looks sort of like a fern-leaf aralia, but with shorter leaves. not ming. at least my ming has only very thin leaves.

I tried fertilizing with Epsom salt water just one time this summer. Soon after that I had the first bloom I have ever had, through years of raising this variety of aralia. This particular plant is now six years old, and is four feet high. I did not photograph the full bloom, but it actually bloomed, and then dropped its powder, and then bloomed again. However, the plant is dropping a lot of leaves right now. I am wondering if I should continue with the salt or lay off with that, especially as winter is approaching. I will try to get a photo uploaded as well.

Unless you KNOW your planting has a magnesium deficiency, dosing with Epsom salts is far more likely to be limiting than a verifiable advantage. There is no substitute for a well-reasoned nutritional supplementation plan that supplies ALL the nutrients plants need in a favorable ratio, and excessive amounts of magnesium have the same potential to limit as a deficiency.

Al

Where can I find what my plant needs? I just love this variety. Is it just a coincidence then that it blossomed for the first time ever within one month. I only added the Epsom salts one time.

Hi, CD. It's impossible for me to know if it was a coincidence or not. I can think of extreme circumstances in which it could be possible, so I guess that means it isn't entirely impossible that the Mg in the Epsom salts relieved a limitation that allowed the plant to bloom. I can link you to some information that explains some of what you need to know in order to keep plants healthy. There is a LOT more, but this should provide a very good starting point.

Al

Al, I appreciate any help I can get! Thank you.

Let me know what you think of what I already provided. If you find it to be of value, I'll provide additional information I think you can use to make your journey toward a green thumb easier and faster. Knowledge will get you to green thumb status 10X faster than experience. Use your experience (practical application) to validate what you've already learned and you'll save yourself 90% of the bites on the butt that collectively make up what most consider to be experience.

Al

My friend is blooming now. I have had this plant for a decade and this is her first bloom.

I would like to help her get more bushy.
Pruning the top helped a bit but I think it could be the height of my windows - no lighting on the lower trunk. I am curious about the post above which recommends bending a bit. Would this work on lower or middle trunk?

The lower trunk is bare because your plant is genetically programmed to be apically dominant. A rough rule of thumb for apically dominant trees is, they will allocate about 2/3 of their energy in the upper 2/3 of the plant if left to their own devices. The only sure way I know of forcing new growth from low on the trunk is by hard pruning. While not 100% reliable, you can often coax back-budding from old wood by making sure cultural conditions are as perfect as can be. A very healthy root system would be an essential addition to excellent cultural conditions, among which are A) providing a photo load close to photo-saturation (giving the plant as much light as possible, but not so much the light load causes stress or leaf tissue damage) B) making sure you're using an appropriate fertilizer and fertility levels are in the luxury range C) ensure there is plenty of air movement where the plant is sited.

Pruning FORCES back-budding because it creates an immediate, though temporary, change in the antagonistic relationship between 2 growth regulators, one of which inhibits back-budding and lateral branching (auxin), and the other (cytokinin), which tends to stimulate back-budding and lateral growth, but unfortunately is on the subordinate side in apically dominant plants until they are pruned. Getting it to back-bud by a mechanism other than pruning should be considered a holistic endeavor - focusing more light on the trunk will not make the trunk sprout new branches. It's not that light focused where you want new branching directly stimulates that branching; instead, it's the abundance of food the tree as a complete organism when light is plentiful is able to synthesize during photosynthesis and readily available nutrition (fertilizer represents the building blocks the plant uses for new growth), which increases the probability of back-budding. Air movement is important because it increases water loss - more water loss = a faster moving sap stream which contains the nutrients that fuel new growth.

Al

Wow - thank you both. I am impressed. I think I will learn to love her as she is and continue to give her appropriate watering, fertilizer, and light. The problem is that when we travel for 2-3 months at a time no one cares for her like I do. She is stressed whenever I return and then I provide TLC.