Pothos

Light and exposure

The pothos accepts almost any position, from bright filtered light to a fairly dark corner. In bright filtered light, the variegated varieties keep their handsome cream or yellow marbling. In dim light, the plant keeps growing but its leaves turn green again and lose their markings.

Avoid only the direct summer sun, which fades and scorches the foliage. It is precisely this tolerance of shade that makes the pothos a perfect candidate for poorly lit rooms, and for the short, grey winters of temperate latitudes, where other plants become drawn.

Watering

Let the top half of the pot dry out before watering again. The pothos vastly prefers a slight lack of water to an excess: it is one of the few plants that forgives you a lapse, but never an overwatering. Reckon on one watering a week in summer, one every ten to fifteen days in winter.

The plant warns you itself. When its leaves go soft and droop, it is thirsty: a good watering perks it up within a few hours. Leaves that yellow in numbers, on the contrary, almost always signal an excess of water. Always empty the saucer after watering.

Soil and repotting

A classic green-plant compost, light and well-drained, is amply enough. Add a handful of perlite if your compost is heavy, so the water drains away fast. The pot must have holes.

The pothos makes do for a long time with a slightly cramped pot. Repot in spring every two or three years, or when the roots come out of the drainage holes, into a container only slightly larger. There is no need to repot it every year, it grows very well when snug.

Temperature and humidity

The comfortable range runs from 18 to 26 degrees. Below 10 degrees, growth stops and the leaves may blacken. The pothos tolerates no frost and hates cold draughts.

Under our climate, winter poses a problem of dry air more than of cold, since the plant lives at room temperature. The air dried out by central heating from November to March can brown the tips of the leaves. A pothos set on a shelf above a radiator suffers: move it, or mist it now and then. This is a minor constraint compared with its overall tolerance.

Pruning and upkeep

Prune without fear in spring or summer to make the plant denser. Cut a stem just above a node, that little bump from which a leaf and a root grow: the plant will send out two new shoots below the cut and become bushier.

Do not throw away the cut pieces, they root all by themselves. You can also redirect the long trailing stems upwards along a moss pole: the pothos is a climbing vine, and on a support its leaves become distinctly larger than when hanging.

Pests and diseases

The pothos is very little prone to diseases. The rare troubles come from mealybugs, small cottony clusters in the leaf axils, favoured by the dry air of winter. A cotton bud soaked in diluted methylated spirits deals with them easily.

The real danger remains an excess of water. Stems that blacken at the base and leaves that yellow in numbers announce root rot. Take out the root ball, cut off the soft, brown roots, let it dry, and repot in fresh compost. Better a slightly thirsty pothos than a drowned one.

Propagation

It is one of the easiest plants to take cuttings from. Cut a ten-centimetre stem bearing at least one node and one leaf, remove the bottom leaf, and plunge the node into a glass of clean water. Change the water each week: roots appear within one to two weeks.

As soon as the roots reach a few centimetres, repot the cutting into soil. You can plant several cuttings in the same pot to obtain a nice bushy plant more quickly. A cutting without a node will never make roots, it is the node that counts, not the leaf.

Toxicity

The whole plant contains calcium oxalate crystals. Chewed, a leaf strongly irritates the mouth, tongue and throat. Keep the pothos out of reach of cats, dogs and young children, all the more so as it often hangs at the height of the curious.

Month-by-month care calendar

Green Hub tips

• The pothos talks to you: soft, drooping leaves want water and perk up within a few hours after a watering.
• For larger leaves, let it climb a moss pole rather than leaving it to trail: it is a vine, not a trailing plant.
• Plant several cuttings in the same pot to obtain a nicely full plant much faster than with a single specimen.
• When in doubt, do not water. The pothos forgives a lapse but rarely an excess of water.