Plants don’t only need to be kept outdoors in a garden. There are plenty of plants that are suitable for being kept in the home that can quickly brighten up a space, too, with their luscious leaves. Not only can they transform a living space, but some are even said to help with stress, while others can help prevent mould from growing in your home.

Whether you add them to your bedroom, living room or even your kitchen, houseplants don’t have to be a dreaded chore, and in fact many of them are relatively easy and low maintenance. Placing them in a spot where they can get the right amount of sunlight and giving them enough water, some experts also advise cleaning your houseplants to remove any dust and grime that can build up in the home and gather on their leaves. If you’re still noticing your plants are looking slightly worse for wear, however, you might want to try this one simple task that can rejuvenate their appearance.

Self-described houseplant enthusiast, Sarah Anne, runs the Instagram account @theplantedbean where she shares tips for caring for plants in the home, and recently revealed one way to make them look “more bushy”.

There’s nothing worse than a sad and sparse-looking houseplant, and while changing its location or topping it up with water can sometimes help bring it back to life, if you haven’t noticed any improvements after doing this, you might need to chop it back.

In a video posted on Instagram, Sarah shared that sometimes the only way to fix a straggly plant is to simply “chop and prop” it back to remove any straggling stems and leaves.

Using her syngonium batik as an example, which she said was “looking real straggly”, the houseplant enthusiast instructed viewers to “cut under the node and then submerge this fully in water”.

If you’re not quite sure where to cut, the node simply refers to the point in the stem where new growth, such as leaves, starts on the plant. When these don’t grow properly, they can make plants appear sparse and straggly, so it’s best to remove them.

But instead of discarding them, Sarah added the growth to a vase with water “to make sure the cuttings can grow” and added rooting hormones to the water.

While many houseplants can root without the addition of root hormones, they can also help speed the process up. Sarah then leaves the cuttings to “root in the water for around two weeks”.

Once the roots have grown to around two inches long, you can go ahead and repot them with the mother plant for a fuller and bushier-looking plant.

Taking to the comments section, followers shared their thoughts on this tip. @midwestplantgal said: “Syngoniums. One of the best to prop[agate].” @bejones_plants commented: “I just chopped so many leggy plants.”

@botanicaloptimist wrote: “I love doing this too! My albo is so leggy at the bottom, so I constantly chop and prop her to make her more full.”