Malabar Chestnut / Pachira spp.

• Easy care
• Needs bright indirect
• Let it dry back partway
• Grows upright
• Pet safe

A braided money tree looks like one plant, but it's usually three to five. Growers plant the seedlings together and braid the young trunks while they're still soft enough to bend, and the braid holds as they thicken. Each trunk sits on a swollen base that stores water — the thing that carries the tree through dry spells in the wild.

That changes how you look after it. A plant that carries its own water copes with being left dry far better than it copes with being kept wet, so the usual way to lose one is too much water. And the braid hides it. When one trunk starts to rot, the others keep the canopy looking fine, so the problem is often well along before anyone notices.

Before you buy

A money tree is a tree, and it grows like one when it has the light for it: compact, full and close-jointed. Bright, indirect light is where it's happiest — beside a bright window that doesn't take hard afternoon sun, or a metre or two back from a sunnier one. Gentle morning sun is fine and often helps.

It's often sold as a plant that handles low light. It survives low light for a while, but it doesn't look good doing it. Growth stretches out, leaves come in smaller and paler, and the whole plant leans toward the window. Turning the pot now and then evens out the lean but doesn't fix the cause. At the other end, hot sun through glass bleaches the leaflets and leaves dry brown patches.

The Shadow Test: hold your hand about 10cm above a leaf during the brightest part of the day for that spot — not midday, since an east-facing room peaks in the morning and a west-facing one in the afternoon — and look at the shadow. A distinct shadow means light the plant can use. A faint one means you're in the lower part of its range. Barely any shadow at all means new growth will stretch thin and lean hard toward the window. You're not looking for direct sun, and the edges of the shadow don't matter. You're checking whether enough light reaches the leaf to cast a visible shadow at all.

The swollen base of each trunk stores water, so a money tree can go further between waterings than most leafy plants. Let the pot get most of the way to its lightest — nearly dry, not bone dry — then water thoroughly. Leave it dry too long and it starts drawing on the water in its trunks: they wrinkle, the leaflets crisp at the edges, and it drops leaves to save water. That's usually recoverable. Too wet is the end that kills it. A pot that never gets to dry back sends rot into the base of the trunks, and it usually finds the weakest strand in the braid first.

The Pot Weight Test: water thoroughly, let it drain, then lift the pot. That's your full weight, and it's the reference point for everything after — commit it to your hands rather than your head. Lift it again every so often until you learn how quickly that particular pot loses weight.

Weight is the test because the surface misleads. The top of the mix dries first and fastest, so it can feel dry to the touch while there's still plenty of water sitting further down — which is how people overwater while believing they've checked.

Water the mix around the edge of the pot, not into the middle of the braid where it can sit against the trunks. Water until it runs from the drainage holes, then empty the saucer or cachepot. Money trees are often sold in glazed pots with no drainage hole, and a plant sitting in its own runoff is a plant in trouble. There's more on how to water houseplants if you want the full picture.

A money tree's roots want air between waterings, and that matters most at the base of the trunks, where rot starts. A dense, peaty mix stays wet longest in the centre of the pot — exactly where the trunks sit. A mix with some chunk in it lets the pot dry back more evenly and gets air back to the roots after each watering.

The Finger Probe Test: this one reads the mix, not the watering decision — weight tells you when to water, the finger tells you whether the mix can still do its job. Push your index finger in as far as it'll go. If it moves through and you can feel distinct pieces — bark, grit, fibre — with some give between them, the structure is still working. If it meets a dense mass that smears like paste and holds the shape of your finger, the mix has broken down and lost its air. Water running around it rather than soaking in means it's gone hydrophobic. A wall of roots with barely any mix left means it's outgrown the pot. A sour or swampy smell suggests the root zone is staying too wet and poorly aerated — investigate now, not later.

A money tree is happy a little snug, and an oversized pot just holds more water than the roots can use. Pot up one size when the Finger Probe Test finds a wall of roots, and set the plant so the swollen base sits at the mix line, not below it. Burying the base keeps it wet, and that's how rot gets in. Spring is the easiest window, but the signals decide when, not the calendar.

A money tree in good light grows steadily through the warmer months and slows right down when the light drops. Feed it while it's putting out new leaves and back off when it stops. Food won't make up for a dim spot — a plant that's stretching and leaning needs light first, and feeding it just makes it stretch faster.

The braid

The braid is something the grower does, not something the plant does. Several young trunks are woven together while they're green and pliable, and they hold that shape as they harden into wood. Nurseries often tie or tape the top of the braid to keep it in place. As the trunks thicken, that tie starts to cut in, so check for one and take it off. Above the braid, new growth comes up as ordinary green stems. You can keep braiding them loosely while they're soft, or leave them to grow out as a canopy.

If one trunk dies, check its base before deciding what to remove. A dry, dead strand that's tightly woven into the braid can be cut off at the mix line without disturbing the healthy trunks around it. If the base is soft or rotting, take out the rotten material where you can safely reach it, then ease the plant out and check the roots the trunks share. Don't pull a woven trunk out by force — you'll damage the healthy ones around it. Then fix the cause. It's usually the mix staying wet, and the next weakest trunk will go the same way if nothing changes.

Pruning

A money tree is a tree that would grow many metres tall in the wild. Indoors it grows toward whatever light it can find, so pruning is how you keep it the shape you bought. It's also the quickest fix for a plant that's already stretched — better light only improves the growth that comes after; the long bare stems it has already made won't fill in.

Cut green stems just above a leaf. New shoots usually break from the buds just below the cut, so each cut makes the top fuller rather than taller. It will reshoot from older, woodier stems too, just more slowly. Prune while the plant is actively growing and in good light — a plant that isn't growing has nothing to push new shoots with, and one that stretched in a dark corner needs moving before it's cut, or it'll just stretch again. Anything you cut is propagation material.

Propagation

Money trees root from stem cuttings. Take a green tip cutting with two or three nodes using clean pruning scissors, take off the lower leaves, and root it in water or straight into a light, airy mix somewhere warm and bright. Some take and some don't, so take a few.

Be realistic about what you'll get: one single-stemmed plant, not a copy of the braided one you started with. Braided money trees are grown from seed in batches, and that isn't something you can do at home — indoor plants rarely flower.

Cleaning the leaves

The leaflets are broad, flat and glossy, so dust shows on them, and a plant that's already working for its light can't spare what dust blocks. Wipe them every few weeks with a soft, damp cloth. Neem Oil Leaf Shine helps lift dust and grime and leaves the foliage clean without a heavy residue. Spray the cloth rather than the leaves, and support each leaflet from underneath as you wipe.

Common problems

Leaves dropping soon after you bring it home or move it: The move, not a disease. Money trees shed leaves when their light or temperature changes suddenly. Keep it in one good spot and don't answer the leaf drop by watering more or moving it again. If leaves are still dropping a month or so on, lift the pot — still heavy means the mix is staying wet; light means check the spot with the Shadow Test.

A trunk feels soft at the base: Rot. Squeeze each trunk — a soft or darkening base that gives under your thumb has rotted. Lift the pot: it'll almost always be heavy. Check the roots and how deep the base is sitting, and deal with the dead strand as described under The braid.

A trunk is wrinkled but still firm: It's losing the water stored in its base. Lift the pot before doing anything else. If it's light, it's been left dry too long — water thoroughly, and the trunk should plump back up over the following weeks. If it's still heavy, don't water. Check the roots: damaged roots can leave a plant thirsty while the mix stays wet.

Yellowing leaves, several at a time: Wet first. Lift the pot — if it's still heavy, the mix has been staying too wet. Check the trunk bases, then check the mix with the Finger Probe Test. Light second: older leaves yellow and drop when the plant can't support them all.

Brown, crispy leaf edges: Position first. Look for a heater vent, a cold draught or hot afternoon sun reaching the leaves. If the spot is right, the pot is drying back too far between waterings.

Long bare stems, small leaves, plant leaning: Light. The plant is stretching toward the window. Move it closer, turn the pot now and then, and cut the stretched stems back once it's growing in better light.

Common pests

Whenever you find one of these, check the plants around it too.

Spider mites: Fine webbing and pale speckling on the leaflets, most often in warm, dry rooms with the heating on. Isolate the plant and rinse the undersides of the leaves.

Mealybugs: White, cottony tufts where the leaflets meet the leaf stalk and in the joints of new growth. Isolate the plant and dab them off with a cotton bud.

Scale: Small, brown, shell-like bumps along the stems and the braided trunks, where they're easy to mistake for bark. Isolate the plant and scrape them off with a fingernail.

If money trees grow near water, why do their roots rot indoors?

Because in the wild they really do grow by water. Pachira aquatica comes from riverbanks and swamp forest in Central and South America, in places that flood for part of the year — its seeds can even sprout while floating. The swollen base fits that life too: it stores water to carry the tree through the dry months once the floods go down.

But a riverbank isn't a pot. In a flood the water moves, the tree is in full tropical sun, and a big canopy pulls water through it fast. In a pot in a living room the water sits still, the light is a fraction of what the tree evolved for, and the plant uses water slowly. Still water holds little oxygen. Roots that can't breathe start to fail, and the rot organisms that thrive in airless, wet mix finish the job. Which of those two does more of the damage hasn't been pulled apart for these plants, and in a pot they arrive together. The answer is the same either way: let the pot dry back.

There's a twist in the name too. Only one of the two species sold as money trees is aquatica. The braided plants in the trade are widely reported to be Pachira glabra, from the riverbanks of eastern Brazil — a plant that handles both flood and drought, and usually goes by its cousin's name.

Good to know