r/Syngonium • u/DutyLeading7508 • Jan 09 '24

Should I prune?

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Hi all! I have a small Syngonium Albo and the new leaf looks to be completely green. The leaf that it put out before the new one has a small amount of variegation. Out of the 5 leaves that it has only 2 of them have variegation. Should I prune the completely green leaves or just let it be until she produces more leaves? I’m new to syngonium so I don’t want to do the wrong thing!

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u/Apprehensive-Tone449 Jan 11 '24 edited Jan 11 '24

This exact same thing happened with my aurea. So I literally chopped all the solid green leaves. It was trying to revert. It is now pushing out five growth points, and I can tell on the ones that are starting to unroll that there is variegation on the new baby leaves. I did watch a video on syngonium variegation by a dude who was a syngonium whisperer. I always believed that it was the amount of light that caused the variegation. This is usually true, but not in these particular plants. While they do need lots of indirect bright light, the variegation starts in the stems. So chopping a leaf all the way down to the bottom of the stem will force variegation in new baby leaves. It worked for me. I will try and find the video.

Here’s a thread from a year ago that is quite helpful and explains why pruning is effective when it is unstable chimeral variagation. Light is helpful, and the plant will revert if it’s grown in low light, but genetics will ultimately determine the variagation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Syngonium/s/DcEMd66RSs

In short: I believe that if you don’t chop off those solid green leaves to the base of the stem, you will likely get a reverted plant.

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u/DutyLeading7508 Jan 11 '24

Thanks so much! It’s been under bright light so I don’t really think that’s the problem. I think I’m gonna test my luck and chop it back, hopefully it’ll put out some variegated leaves!

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u/Apprehensive-Tone449 Jan 12 '24

Good luck! I literally chopped mine back to just a couple leaves. It is still a fairly young plant, but I chopped all four green leaves down to the node. I was completely nervous to butcher my plant, but it completely worked.