Pruning my Serissa

Fyrefly · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:42 pm Post subject: Pruning my Serissa

Hello all,

I'm not sure if you remember the terrified new Serissa owner from a few months back, but here I am again! Serissa is doing quite well. It flowered quite nicely after it settled in to my dorm, although it voiced its disapproval quite loudly when I had to move home! That was back in mid-May. It stopped flowering, which is fine, since at least it didn't drop leaves all over the place.

My question is now, how do I even go about knowing where to START the pruning process? I haven't made a single prune to it aside from pulling off the flowers when they died. Oddly enough, that's left little pod-like things with holes in them where the flowers used to be that I'm not sure I can pull out without taking some foliage with it. That could be a reason it's stopped flowering.

I'm not sure where to start, since there are all these designs people go for, and I'm not sure what mine would be good to do. I don't want to start hacking at branches willy-nilly, and I was just hoping maybe you guys could give me your opinions, or maybe point me to some books for when I make my next library run?

This picture is the one I took the day after I got it. It has no yellow leaves now, but the overall shape is about the same, although some of the branches are definitely longer. I can get a new picture if that would make a difference, but right now this is the one I got so I thought I would go with it:
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e46/FyreflySDKG/IMG_1116.jpg

Thanks for your help!

TB420 · Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:27 am Post subject: Re: Pruning my Serissa

Take a look here. Lots of good info here but the main thing is you are to trim the long shoots back, and remove any that grow down.

Tom

Stymie · Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:05 am Post subject: Re: Pruning my Serissa

The new extensions can be trimmed back to leave two pairs of leaves, bearing in mind the original triangular silhouette which would be best adhered to.

TB420 · Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 6:05 pm Post subject: Re: Pruning my Serissa

Don, when you say 2 pairs, do you mean 2 leaves, or 2 sets of leaves?

I'd trim back the top to 2 or 3 leaves, and the bottom to 3-4 leaves, keeping in mind the original triangular outline (if there was one).

Tom

splendidplumage · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:11 am Post subject: Re: Pruning my Serissa

As shown in the picture there is very little growth on the right at the top. I t needs to fill out more there. So trim all the long shoots on the left at the top to just beyond the original rounded silhouette. Trim the shoots growing straight up from the lower branch off, reduce the length of the very long shoot going up and right out of that right foliage pad.

General pruning: trim back every new shoot to the first pair of leaves unless the distance from the last pair of leaves is over long (say over 5mm) then trim right back to the original leaf.

Oh apart from shoots growing to fill in the gap on the right which you can allow to extend more.