With geometrical glossy leaves on sculptural stems, here’s How to Grow a Bushier Chinese Money Plant for a futuristic and edgy indoor decor!
From minimalism to sci-fi fandom, this plant’s symmetrical, coin-like foliage, slender stems, and glossy, lush green hues satisfy all sleek decor needs.
It’s also known as the UFO plant for its extraterrestrial appearance and, more commonly, as a friendship plant because of its “easy to divide” and “best plant to gift” reputation.
And don’t miss the fact that it’s considered a plant of fortune in Fengshui due to its coin-shaped leaves, which is why it’s called a money plant!
How to Grow a Bushier Chinese Money Plant
Pilea is a superb houseplant for beginners. It is low maintenance, compact, grows well in containers, and looks spectacular with little effort. With the right care, it is most graceful at filling out space. A healthy plant produces ample pups—key to a wholesome look—which you can regrow, replant, and gift away happily.
However, even this resilient plant needs a few things done right to thrive, without which, its leaves won’t fully develop, its central stem may start getting bendy and irregular, and overall, the plant will grow leggy and sparse. And of course, won’t sprout any new pups either!
So, let’s address these misgivings and make sure our Chinese Money Plant only grows bushier and healthier to stay its eye-catching best!
Steps to Make Your Chinese Money Plant Bushier
1. Rotate for Ample Sun
Chinese money plants love bright, indirect light, but as we grow plants indoors, the light they receive may not be even on all sides. In search of light, your pilea will start stretching and bending, using up all resources actually meant for its moneymaker—the foliage!
It may also grow lop-sided, fuller where the light falls, and lanky where it doesn’t! Rotating the plant 90 degrees weekly ensures it gets even sunlight all over, so the central stem won’t start meandering in search of anything.
Instead, it can stay put and support the rest of the plant to encourage bushy growth. And if you just don’t have ample sun, simply use grow lights.
2. Propagating Pups
The mother plant, given all requirements are satisfied, will rapidly grow lush and full. But the best part is how quickly it produces pups that shoot up from the dirt with their own sets of tiny roots that go deep down. Now, for a bushier Chinese money plant, leave them be! And they’ll automatically give the parent plant plenty of girth as they grow.
However, if you wish to move these pups to another sparse-looking pilea that isn’t the mother, gently cut these baby plants a few inches below the soil with some roots attached and stick them in a glass of water with dappled sunshine. Once you see the roots form, plant them around the target pilea after examining the pot size.
Repot if you find the current container too crammed! Choose one with good drainage, preferably add a layer of pebbles, then fresh potting soil, and then the entire rootball. Next, let’s quickly talk about moisture before further details.
3. Perfect Hydration
Now, this may seem like a generic plant care tip, but it’s crucial to growing a healthy and bushy pilea. This plant doesn’t like wet feet, and neither does it like its leaves and stems staying damp. The best way to hydrate is to target the roots.
If growing in a compact container which is inside a decorative outer body, simply take it out, then sit the pot in a tray of water for ten minutes, and you’re done. This is better than letting the outer pot collect water and give room for root rot, or watering from top.
Pilea prefers the soil to dry out by a third between waterings. And this step ensures its roots are working perfectly, diverting without distraction all nutrients needed for bushy foliage! Now, here’s what to do if you have overwatered your pilea.
4. Regular Pruning
Trimming away old, excessive, withering leaves and branches helps sprout new growth, thus giving your Chinese money plant a luscious look. If it has been leggy and stretching out of frame, pruning also helps bring it back to its center and redirects energy to fresh life.
To achieve fuller growth from the top, you can prune the leaves and stems that are growing outward. But always do this best at the start of its growing season around spring, which allows the plant enough time to heal. However, you can do moderate pruning anytime during the growing season.
5. Pinch More!
When we say pinch, we mean gently and manually, with your fingers, and not the tools! Pinching new growth, especially the topmost growing tips, redirects the plant’s energy and encourages lateral growth, making it look round and bushy!
Pinch the stem tips of new growth with about 2-3 leaves on top, by holding it between your fingers, and gently twisting to remove just above the leaf node. Do this every few weeks as the plant grows. And forget about using shears, etc, as all these can be quite damaging!
Since we are targeting fresh growth here, only do this if the growth is too vertical. Don’t remove more than 20 percent of the plant’s total leaves at a time. And wait for the plant to recover and settle before pruning and pinching again! It’s surgery, remember?
6. Slow & Steady Plant Food
An extra boost of nutrients will ensure the overall growth of your plant, including its bushiness. However, if you want to focus on bushy foliage on your Chinese Money Plant, go for a fertilizer rich in nitrogen. You can use leaves, mold, or compost, which will ensure that your plant has healthy foliage growth.
Feed it a balanced liquid indoor plant fertilizer diluted to half its strength during its growing season in spring every month. It prefers slow release nutrients spread out over ample time, say six months, and is in no rush to get overwhelmed with too much feed!
7. A Cozy Community of Plants
Despite its exceptional, superior appearance, this plant actually enjoys the company of other plants. While it looks perfect against a lone sunny window sill, it will be truly happy when grouped with other plants to create a microenvironment.
This will keep it cozy, humid, and protect it from dry or extreme fluctuations. And what’s better than a plant—several plants!
Group them with sepcimens with similar needs and preferences, such as the Jade plant, or peperomia. You can water these together without too much caution, and as this evaporates, it boosts air moisture that pilea adores.
Hope these tips help bring out the best and bushiest of your Chinese money plant. Before you go, also read this effective little guide on using nail clippers for bushier plants!
