Why has my pothos stopped growing

[Freya]

It stopped growing and only has tiny leaves. It’s starting to go yellow and some leaves have died off. How do I fix this?

 

[Addie007]

Not a plant expert but I would transfer it to water so that it can develop some roots before the entire plant dies off and then report it in soil. That’s what I did with mine and it’s growing nicely now

 

[Low Altitude]

Not a plant expert but I would transfer it to water so that it can develop some roots before the entire plant dies off and then report it in soil. That’s what I did with mine and it’s growing nicely now

Yes! Start in water and let it get some decent-sized roots before transferring to soil. Once established in soil, they are nearly impossible to over-water, and tolerant of relatively little light. Extraordinarily versatile plant.

 

[Low Altitude]

View attachment 88908
It stopped growing and only has tiny leaves. It’s starting to go yellow and some leaves have died off. How do I fix this?

If you've transferred to water to help it root, you might want to refresh / change the water every few days. Give it light, but it doesn't need *direct* sunlight. Don't hurry to get it back into soil: in the water, your stems should, in a few weeks, throw out sturdy-looking roots a few inches long, and several of them. At that point, they can go into soil.

 

[cpp gardener]

I would have left it alone.
Is it a new unrooted cutting?
A recently repotted 4" pot?
Has it had a change in location?
How often do you water?
How do you decide when to water it?
How close to a light source is it?
So many questions, so many explanations.

 

[Sabina515]

This looks like propagating cuttings. The roots probably didn't get long enough, but I dont see the yellow leaf making a come back. You can do what everyone suggested and put it back in water. Let the roots grow several inches and put it back in soil. Not always do the cutting transplant well if roots are short. I've done this dozen of times with my pothos because it gets so long, I cut it, grow roots, then give it away. Just let the roots get long and wild in the water and the put it back in soil. One day this pothos will be out of control like mine.

 

[Low Altitude]

Sabina515 – That's absolutely right.

Here are some pothos that I water-rooted in 2015:

Not a great photo, but you can see that the jam jar is pretty much filled with root. I then transplanted them to soil....

Here it is now:

It's about a foot and a half across. The other one is the same.

 

[Sabina515]

Sabina515 – That's absolutely right.

Here are some pothos that I water-rooted in 2015:

View attachment 90870

View attachment 90869

Not a great photo, but you can see that the jam jar is pretty much filled with root. I then transplanted them to soil....

Here it is now:

View attachment 90871


It's about a foot and a half across. The other one is the same.

Wow!!! Look how beautiful and full it is! Do you keep trimming it back?

 

[Low Altitude]

Wow!!! Look how beautiful and full it is! Do you keep trimming it back?

I don't have to trim it, but what I do is weave shoots as they grow, back into the plant, rather than have them 'trail'. That leads to the 'ball' shape you see. underneath the foliage, there's an 8-inch pot.

One of the many ways the pothos has surprised me is not getting leggy, despite the fact that it grows fifteen feet from the nearest window, admittedly a south-facer in a light, bright room. So it's not quite growing in the dark, but I do wonder if that variegation we see (all the leaves) results from the relatively subdued light it gets.

I've also never fertilized it, for what that's worth (well, maybe once a year). I'm afraid that if i do so, it'll take over the house!

Another remarkable robustness: about two years ago, one watering I discovered that the pot was home to a decent colony of the tiniest pitch-black ants i have eber seen – a little more than a millimeter long. The pothos didn't seem to be suffering and at first I was reluctant to do anything. The ants didn't seem to be doing any harm and interestingly, they confined themselves to the pot and a region maybe 5 inches around it... at least that's all I saw. After a while, though, as the critters proliferated, I was afraid that they might infect other plants less invulnerable than the pothos, or migrate to the kitchen, or who knows what. Ants are impressively robust too. So I used an insecticide and they're gone.

The other thing I do is rotate the plant at every watering: unsurprisingly, it does grow more bushy on the side facing the light.

Pothos is extraordinarily robust and undemanding. Wish all my other plants were as low-maintenance.

 

[Sabina515]

I LOVE pothos. Very easy, drought tolerant. Nothing bothers them. I have 4 variations. Golden, marble queen, snow queen and manjula.

 

[Low Altitude]

I LOVE pothos. Very easy, drought tolerant. Nothing bothers them. I have 4 variations. Golden, marble queen, snow queen and manjula.

I had no idea about the varieties – live and learn, thank you.