My plants are too bushy, please help!!

These are my plants. I topped them about a month ago and they are getting out of hand. My worry is that there are leaves that are covering the new growth and I'm wondering if I can trim some of the older leaves off. I now have 2 stems that are producing a large number of leaves. It looks like the leaves are too cluttered. Can I trim the leaves between the 2 stalks to give the a little breathing room?

Your plant will want to use all the leaves that is has made.
Don't cut anything that the plant does not get rid of itself. It knows how to grow itself much better then you.

LSt them if you want to open up lower growth- low stress training

Schmarmpit said:

Your plant will want to use all the leaves that is has made.
Don't cut anything that the plant does not get rid of itself. It knows how to grow itself much better then you.

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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
listen to this person if i were you , most ppl want your problem.....

I'm just worried about the nods getting the adequate light. Some of the older leaves tend to cover them up. I can't wait to sex them already.

Think of the largest fan leaves as solar panels, collecting energy for the ENTIRE plant to grow.

I know, I had really tall and skinny plants and I was wishing I could have bushes. Now I'm overwhelmed because I have limited space and 10 plants. I need to sex them but I'm still waiting for pre flowers. They are in a speaker box that's about 3 feet tall and 2x2. I'm using 400watt cfls in miracle grow soil. I'm also using miracle grow plant food. But they are way bushy now.

mysativa420 said:

I know, I had really tall and skinny plants and I was wishing I could have bushes. Now I'm overwhelmed because I have limited space and 10 plants. I need to sex them but I'm still waiting for pre flowers. They are in a speaker box that's about 3 feet tall and 2x2. I'm using 400watt cfls in miracle grow soil. I'm also using miracle grow plant food. But they are way bushy now.

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as it matures it will open out , you'll see =) just heavy indica and thats good

Either way is fine. You won't kill the plant by removing a few leaves. In 2-3 days the leaves on the nodes beneath what you remove will have responded by more than filling in that space. Without removing any leaves those lower nodes wouldn't be encouraged as much and wouldn't grow as large.

In the end it is a wash. Either method is fine.

For some reason people are all one side or the other on this subject. The middle road is fine, remove what looks like it needs removing. The plant will be fine.

Don't believe me?


18 days worth of growth. Four defoliations. Plants do fine when you remove a few leaves to expose under branches. They definitely fill in.

i was merely saying that the plant will open up as it grows , thats fresh growth , underneath will more than likely get taken off anyway,..... and is does not look that tall....

Don't get me wrong. I love it and it's looking way better than I expected. I'm just worried about space. I have a feeling it's gonna get too big for my box. I a few. That particular one was tall and slanky. I replanted it in a deeper pot and then I topped it and changed the lights to cfls and boom. They just took off. They are getting smelly and the wife is tripping. Any suggestions?

lst...it will keep it shorter and grow more bud. smelly ..is good. try venting through a charcoal canister

Can you please explain the charcoal thing in better detail?

My set up uses a charcoal canister ( activated carbon) and an ozone generator on the exhaust duct. You can find plans to build them here or buy one online- plenty in hydro supply houses, sunlight solutions or on ebay.

On my previous grow i had the same problem, short bushy plants with leaves covering all the new growth.

a couple of weeks into flower i decided to remove every other fan leave from the plants. free'd up a lot of space.
I ended up removing most of the large fan leaves... all that happens is that vertical growth slows down. and the side shoots grow larger leaves to compensate for it.

I have no idea wather or not the budsites need more light or if the fan leaves feed the shaded sites.

Either way is fine... try removing just a couple and see how it reacts... i hear that if you remove one large fan leave from each node, opposite sides each time working your way up like a spiral staircase (understand?) then it will prmote side growth a lot more and end up with large side buds, a little like the affect of topping would have but keeping the height.

The nodes don't need light, the fan leaves are responsible for most of the energy production which in turn pushes new growth out through the nodes in the form of flowers or branches depending on what time of the cycle you are in. From the looks of it you are still vegging, the more large fan leaves you have in veg the greater your chances of producing fatter bigger better flowers. Leave them on and let it be, you want what's best for the plant and that's great but not this way. She looks good though.

I ended up cutting some of the leafs from the middle. It's been about a week and she's doing very well. Thanks guys.