Pothos are coming right along

Devil’s ivy (Pothos, Epipremnum aureum) has been one of America’s favorite houseplants for the past 100 years. Growers are bringing us new types to try, so the horizons keep broadening.

Several years ago in two successive Decembers my wife was gifted a 6-inch pothos at a Christmas school board event. I left them in their 6-inch pots and wrapped in their wicker baskets growing in our sunroom. It’s easy to know when they need to be watered because they start to wilt subtly. I let them go a bit “hungry” just because I didn’t want them to outgrow their spaces.

Over the couple of years though, they started to turn a bit pale, so I gave them liquid, high-nitrogen plant food (probably the same brand that you’d buy). They looked better within days and started growing within weeks.

Soon I had stems long enough for harvesting cuttings, so I put a bunch of stems into a glass jar and set them alongside our sink.

Now, I’ve been growing plants since I was 5 or 6, but even I was amazed at how quickly roots became visible (4 or 5 days).

I potted those cuttings up on May 23, and in less than 3 months of brutal Texas heat on our front porch they’ve started to mature into a lovely pot filled and ready to come back indoors.

Even better news, as I reported back then, my plants yielded many cuttings – enough for 3 glasses of cuttings. Those plants are all well rooted now, and I’ll be potting them up this week so that they can grow between now and the time of our first frost. They’ll be coming indoors for winter.

To complete the story, as you saw above, the original mother plants are doing splendidly, still in their same spaces and still looking just beautiful some 5 years into the journey.