[cornedbeef]

Hi, I have an umbrella plant and it grew fine for the first 2 feet, but now the individual umbrellas are a quarter of the size of the first ones but there are three times as many and the plant just looks stupid. What I want to know is could I get away with cutting the top off or would it kill the plant?
Thanks Richard.

[twinkiedooter]

I used to have umbrella trees growing in my backyard in South Florida. The little umbrella leaves you talk about are just young leaves and need to grow. They will grow but it takes time for them to grow much bigger. Don't cut the top of the plant off as that could cause the plant trauma and could very well kill it. The fact that you have three times as many smaller leaves means that your plant is alive and doing great! Don't take off the new leaves. Take off the old big leaves only when they show signs of aging. You have a healthy sounding plant!

[twinkiedooter]

They are hardy trees but don't let the plant get below freezing as it will kill off a lot of it from the cold. The trees I had in my backyard were well over 25' tall and still growing so they do get rather large if planted in a yard in a tropical like setting. I'm sure that won't happen in England LOL!