Just added a couple photos of this plant to the database. A friend of mine bought it 2 springs ago, grew it outside over the summer and inside over the winter. When she moved last spring, she gave it to me. It had a lot of brown lower leaves that fell off, leaving me with what reminds me of 3 little trees. They are about 19" tall now and after growing them outside over the summer, I have just moved them indoor. Any ideas on keeping it from losing more leaves? I was wonder if it would work to just cut off the stems next spring and root the tops in soil? Or maybe I could plant them in the center of a larger container and put other plants around the outside of the pot to cover the bare stems. Or would cutting off the tips make the grow leaves down lower?

Hi Susan, saw this link and it gives good info about your plant: http://looking-at-plants.com/p...

Reading through it, it seems better to do your trimming around Spring time. Also says if you do some pruning, it will encourage the plant to branch out, since it does tend to go leggy. I do not grow that type of croton, but the croton I have, I find it loves daily misting on the leaves in my area, maybe because our place is so dry during summer. My croton also drops some leaves when it transitions from outdoors to indoors during winter, and it just grows back new leaves outdoors when our temperatures are back in the low 70-80's range.

It doesn't look etiolated at all, just older, with a trunk. Woody entities usually lose the foliage on the older growth where the trunk has lignified. Prune often if you only want to see foliage, with no bare trunks, so stems never have a chance to lignify.

Your idea to put a short companion in the pot would be cute too. Something like this could work well, if you're envisioning another upright entity:


I call it the world's tiniest shrub, and have it at the base of a lot of my taller plants.

I agree I would not do any major surgery until Spring/summer if it really bothers you with the naked legs. But I would just use a ground/pot cover. If you want more color I would use coleus.

Thanks f or the ideas. I will wait until spring and then maybe do some pruning of the tips.