Today I decided it was time to clean up my new pineapple plant. When I purchased it from the store it had yellow tips on most of its fronds. I have let these be up to this point, however, it is time to prune off the unwanted yellow and black parts of the leaves and make the plant look nicer. Additionally, I have been battling over-watering warning signs on this plant for the past week. Check out the video further down this post to see exactly how I pruned my pineapple plant!
Current Plant Status
Currently, my pineapple plant has four completely dead, yellow and brown fronds at the base of the plant. Almost all of the tips of the fronds are yellow as well. In order to clean up this pineapple plant, I will use my small pruning shears. You can use any size pruning shears or even a pair of scissors if you are confident in your cutting ability. Cutting shears offer a very sharp blade that will not fray the fronds as you cut them. Scissors, on the other hand, may or may not be very sharp and if you are hacking away while trimming the fronds you could fray them, damaging the plant.
How to Prune a Pineapple Plant
I started to clean up my pineapple plant on my turntable. I like to use this to smoothly rotate the plant around while I am working on it. It makes it easier to work on all sides of the plant without having to walk circles around the tree. Additionally, I gathered my cutting shears and began to identify places that I wanted to prune. I decided that I wanted to remove all the yellow tips of the fronds and the dead brown fronds at the base of the plant.
I started by slowly cutting a straight line, right across where the dried yellow part of the frond met the green healthy part. Slowly, I went one by one, rotating the plant as I went. Once I had rotated the plant 360°, removing all the yellow tips, it was time to remove the dried up fronds at the base of the plant. To do this, I gripped the frond very close to the trunk and pulled at an angle to tear it off from the stem. The first one came off surprisingly easy. Three fronds later and the job was done! Check out the video below to see exactly what I did.
Final Result
I am quite pleased with how the final product turned out. There were a few fronds that had minor to major damage on them. I decided to leave these alone for now because removing the damaged parts would mean removing the entire frond which is not necessary at this point. Once the damaged fronds begin to turn yellow, I will cut them off entirely.
All of the cuts I made were smooth and precise. I did not end up fraying any of the fronds and was able to remove pretty much all of the dead parts. I ended up with a small pile of leaf cuttings that I will discard of as soon as I finish admiring this plant. Over the past few days, I have been noticing some over-watering signs on this plant. Some of the fronds are starting to wilt and turn yellow. I have only watered this plant once since purchasing it, however, the soil is still very moist like I am watering it every day. I have refrained from watering it anymore so I hope this situation will solve itself.
This video, along with all my other videos, has been posted to my YouTube page. Be sure to check it out to easily find all the videos I have uploaded about my bonsai collection. If you missed the first post about purchasing my pineapple plant you can check it out here. As always, all these pictures and more can be found in the Gallery, and stay tuned for more posts and updates about my plants!
