Pothos plant care is the most straightforward introduction to houseplants available, which is why we recommended it to beginners for twenty-five years at our shop on Queen Street West, and why the experienced plant person, upon hearing us say this, would look past us toward the shelves and ask if we had anything rare and difficult that they were also not going to buy.
There are two types of people who come into a plant shop. The first type is the beginner. They arrive slightly uncertain, and when you tell them about pothos — that it tolerates low light, that it trails beautifully, that it propagates in a glass of water on the windowsill with no intervention required — their eyes light up. Every time. Without exception. In twenty-five years we have never told a beginner about pothos propagation and watched their face remain neutral.
The second type is the experienced plant person. When you tell them about pothos, they nod politely in the way of someone who learned about pothos years ago and has since moved on to things that are harder to keep alive and more expensive to replace. They ask if you have anything unusual. You show them something unusual. They examine it with genuine interest, ask several informed questions, and then do not buy it. We do not know why this is. We observed it consistently for twenty-five years and never developed a satisfying explanation.
Both of these people should own a pothos. The beginner because it is genuinely the best introduction to plant care available — forgiving, fast-growing, visually rewarding. The experienced plant person because the pothos, in its more unusual varieties, is not the plant they remember from the waiting room. The neon pothos glows. The manjula has cream and green variegation that looks painted. The cebu blue has a silvery iridescence that changes in different light. These are accessible plants that have done the work of being extraordinary and asked very little in return.
Pothos plant care summary: Indirect light in any intensity from low to bright. Water when the top inch or two of soil has dried out; drain completely. Temperatures between 60 and 85°F. A pot with drainage. Propagate by cutting a stem below a node, placing in water, and waiting one to three weeks for roots. The most forgiving houseplant available and, in its more unusual varieties, one of the most extraordinary.
How to Care for Your Pothos
Light is where the pothos demonstrates its flexibility most clearly. It tolerates low light, medium light, and bright indirect light with equal composure, growing faster in brighter conditions and slower in dim ones but expressing no particular opinion about the difference. It does not want direct harsh sun, which will bleach the leaves.
Variegated varieties need more light than the solid green varieties to maintain their variegation. In low light they revert toward solid green, which is the plant's way of increasing leaf surface area for photosynthesis. Brighter indirect light keeps the variegation. This is the only light-related opinion the pothos has and it is a reasonable one.
Watering should happen when the top inch or two of soil has dried out — thoroughly, draining completely, then stopping until the soil dries again. Yellowing leaves usually mean overwatering. Wilting with dry soil means underwatering. Both are easy to correct. — Chive Studio
Temperature between 60 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Away from cold drafts. Otherwise largely unbothered by the conditions of most North American homes.
How to Propagate Pothos
Pothos propagation is the entry point for most people into the propagation conversation and it remains the simplest version of that conversation regardless of how much experience you accumulate afterward.
Cut a stem just below a node — the small brown bump where a leaf meets the stem — with at least one leaf attached. Place the cut end in a glass of water on a bright windowsill. Roots appear within one to three weeks, growing with a speed that genuinely surprises people who are doing it for the first time. When roots are two to three inches long, pot into well-draining soil and water thoroughly.
Propagating pothos in water
- Cut a stem just below a node — the small brown bump where a leaf meets the stem — with at least one leaf attached
- Place the cut end in a glass of water on a bright windowsill; change the water every few days to keep it fresh
- Roots appear in one to three weeks and grow with a speed that surprises most first-timers
- When roots are two to three inches long, transfer to well-draining potting mix and water thoroughly
- One healthy pothos produces enough cuttings to supply everyone you know within a single growing season — use the Dojo pot for the parent plant and small pots with drainage for the new ones
What to Put on the Wall Above It
A pothos trailing from a shelf or hanging planter creates a downward movement that the wall above it tends to leave unaddressed. Our ceramic flowers work in the space above and behind a trailing pothos — the greens and whites of the Coastal collection, the warm yellows of the English Garden, colors that acknowledge the pothos's own palette and carry it up the wall. Three to five flowers above a trailing pothos creates a vertical composition that looks like something someone planned, which is both true and easier than it looks.
If you are unsure where to start, the English Garden collection has the warmest palette and works with almost everything the pothos already does.
We design and make ceramic plant pots. In twenty-five years on Queen Street West the pothos was the first plant we recommended to more customers than any other, and the plant that the experienced customer walked past on the way to something more complicated that they were also not going to buy. Our ceramic pots are stocked in the Getty Museum, SFMOMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the New York Botanical Garden, the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Maritime Aquarium, and more than 200 institutions worldwide. The Dojo pot is what we use for pothos. It has drainage, it has the right proportions for a trailing plant, and it has never once asked to be moved to a different spot, which is a quality we have come to deeply appreciate.
