When to Prune an Ocotillo Cactus?

Specimen Plant

• Ocotillo is used primarily as an accent or specimen plant in a cactus or xeriscape garden. A mature plant harvested from the wild is planted in place for immediate effect because a seedling takes a long time to grow to a size useful in landscaping. Sometimes a landscaper reroots an ocotillo, but most often the plant is sold unrooted and needs to be re-established. That process takes months to one or two years, or the plant may never reroot. One of the viable reasons to prune an ocotillo is to remove dead and damaged canes from a harvested plant before putting it in your garden. When you plant an ocotillo, anticipate that it will increase in size, and keep it away from neighboring plants, pathways and structures so you don't need to cut it back as it grows. At maturity, an ocotillo can be 15 to 30 feet tall and 10 to 15 feet wide.

Barrier Plantings

• A reason to take ocotillo cuttings is to create barrier plantings or fences with the canes, a traditional use of ocotillo in the Southwest since Colonial times. The base of a cut branch is put into a shallow trench and anchored to its neighbors with fencing wire twined about the branches at the tops and bottoms of the canes. Some, but not all, of the branches may take root and grow. Rooted cuttings don't develop the characteristic branching form with the enlarged base that normal seedling-grown ocotillo plants exhibit, but they can flower.

Pruning Guidelines

• Removing canes lessens an ocotillo's spring floral display. When removing a cane for plant health or for a rooting cutting, however, cut the stalk back to the plant's base. Don't simply cut off a piece from a cane and leave a stump. Leaving a stump encourages spindly, multiple branches that become tangled and unsightly and destroy the plant's clean, vertical lines.

  Use clean pruning shears that were sterilized with rubbing alcohol, and sterilize the tool before each cut. Sterilizing the tool is necessary because one of the dangers of pruning an ocotillo is the accidental introduction of plant pathogens that can infect and eventually kill the plant.

Adaptations

• A desert plant, ocotillo sometimes is referred to as a succulent, even though it doesn't have water-storage tissue. More properly, it is an extremely water-efficient woody shrub that conserves water through various adaptations. Ocotillo drops its oval leaves up to several times each year during drought conditions and regrows them when soil moisture is sufficient. While the leaves are absent, green tissue on the plant's stems photosynthesize to make food for the ocotillo. The plant's heavy spines help shade the stems. Ocotillo puts on new stem growth during the heat and moisture of the summer rainy season. The plant has few pests and diseases as long as it is intact and healthy.