Key Points
- Increase and balance light by moving plants closer to windows or rotating them regularly.
- Avoid overwatering, overfertilizing, and skip excess nitrogen to prevent weak, stretched growth.
- Prune leggy stems or propagate healthy cuttings to encourage fuller, stronger plants.
Leggy houseplants don't look great—and more importantly, legginess typically means that your plant isn't getting what it needs to thrive. Also known as etiolation, this condition occurs when stems grow long and weak, with extra space between leaves.
The good news is that it's easier to fix leggy houseplants than you might think. Here are 5 expert tips you can use to fix a leggy houseplant in your home.
Give the Plant More Light
The most common reason a houseplant will grow leggy is that it's reaching in an effort to get more light.
"Unfortunately, when houseplants stretch in this way, it makes them weaker, which in turn makes them more vulnerable to pests and diseases," says Lucie Bradley, greenhouse and gardening expert at Easy Garden Irrigation.
Addressing this problem may be as simple as moving your plant closer to a window or grow light, but it's important to understand how much light your plant needs.
For example, Bradley says, plants that can handle low light, like peace lilies and ferns, can thrive in or near a north or east-facing window.
On the other hand, sun-loving succulents and cacti benefit from the direct sun of a west- or south-facing window.
Rotate the Plant Regularly
Even a plant that's technically getting enough light can begin to grow or stretch toward its light source if the light only comes from one direction.
Outdoors in nature, plants grow uniformly upwards towards the sun. But in homes, where the light from a window or grow light typically comes from only one place, they need a little help from you to grow evenly.
Bradley recommends turning your houseplants slightly each time you water them, or every one to two weeks.
"Simply rotating the plant, making a quarter turn every time you water your plant, is usually sufficient to counteract it growing towards the light," Bradley says. "It will appear even on all sides and growth will be more balanced."
Avoid Overwatering and Overfeeding
While light is frequently the reason behind legginess in houseplants, it's not the only contributing factor, Bradley says. Giving houseplants too much water can contribute to leaf drop and weak overall growth, which can eventually make plants look stretched out and leggy.
Fertilizing more often than your plant needs, or using the wrong type of fertilizer, can also cause issues.
"Too much nitrogen will result in rapid growth of stems and leaves rather than healthy root development," she says. "This results in plants becoming tall and leggy, with weak, elongated growth which can't be fed sufficiently by a small root system."
She notes that houseplants grow best with a balanced 10-10-10 fertilizer that's only given in spring and summer, when the plant is actively growing. Diluting fertilizer to half the recommended strength can also help you avoid overfertilizing.
Keep Up With Pruning
A plant may end up looking leggy and tired because it's simply overdue for a tidying trim.
"Regular pruning, especially of trailing or vining houseplants such as philodendrons or monsteras, will help them to become fuller and full of vigor rather than becoming unruly and leggy," Bradley says.
Use clean, sharp scissors or pruners to cut back dead leaves, leggy stems, and bare-looking vines as you see them. By removing this excess, you'll stimulate new growth that will come in bushier and fuller in the long run.
Think of these maintenance trims as light pruning that can be done throughout the year—but save significant annual pruning of up to one-third of the plant's foliage for the spring growing season.
When All Else Fails, Propagate
While there are different strategies you can use to help a leggy houseplant look healthy and full, you can't actually reverse this condition. For example, an echeveria succulent that's become tall and etiolated can't return to its low, rose-like growth habit.
However, it's often possible to chop off the healthy stem tip of a leggy plant, propagate it under the proper conditions, and create a new plant that looks and grows the way it should.