A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 Pothos

I have a medium sized pothos that receives it's daily share of nice, bright, filtered light. It's not "thick" in the middle, probably about 25-30 leaves, yet they often turn yellow. While visiting an Aunt for Mother's Day, I noticed her Pothos were "thinned-out" in the middle as well. The outsides seem to be growing well and soon to have that hanging effect. I've had it since Xmas when I purchased it from Wal-mart it was quite potbound. Although I didn't know at the time I should wait to repot a newly purchased plant, we haven't had any problems.

From what i've seen, these plants are very touchy about being moved, repotted, fertalized, and being located. They don't die, but they get awefully stressed. Their leaves go limp or die, and stuff like that. I have one being rooted in water right now, and ever since i cut it from its parent, its been all limp, and stressed. Its still alive, so i put it next to my ficus, and it climbed right up it lol. Did the whole "i'm gonna root myself here" thing too.

The middle of your pothos doesn't have many leaves probably because it doesn't get as much light in the middle, or its concentrating on getting light from the leaves on the outside. I'm not sure ^.^ They're nice plants though Maybe someone else will know more

Pothos, my favorite plant...

I have a Silver Queen in a 10" pot right now that's threatening to burst out of its pot, run across the floor and smother my macaw... I love that plant...

In my experience, while pothos do enjoy and deserve bright light to show up the best, they're a bit touchy about too much sun. They do have a tendency to go bald in the middle also so what you could do is plant some cuttings from the longest trailers there, or loop one of the long stems back into the middle so it will root back into the pot. I've been doing that with my own pothos and it's looking nice and full.

If you want to keep your pothos nice and full, then you will have to prune it regularly. When you allow the vines to grow very long, eventually they reach a point where they cannot support any more leaves. So they drop off older leaves so they can keep adding new leaves at the ends. You end up with long bare strings with all of the leaves at the ends.

The solution: Every month or so, cut the longest one or two vines back to within a few inches of the soil. New leaves will emerge at that point - in the center of the plant. The cuttings root easily in water or moist soil.

Keep your pothos very potbound and water only when the top inch of soil is dry.