A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2003 Big shiny leaves, strong branches

How do you grow Pothos to have big waxy leaves and strong branches?

1. Is it better indoor or outdoor with indirect light?

2. The soil has a big percentage of perlite and peat moss but no drain hole. I did have some small gravels on the bottom but probably not enough. Do I need a different soil mix?

3. Is it better to prune it short to a certain length to boost the nutrients to the lower leaves and branches? Currently, I tried to keep it under 6 feet in a vertical trelis.

4. Which one is better? Having one big giant rooting or individual cuttings establish a cluster of rootings? I have both. The big giant root ball seems to have stunt growth so I planted a new one with multiple cuttings.

5. The new leaves are nicely waxed and shine but loose its luster as it grows. Is there something I can do to maintain that luster?
Perhaps, use mist more often on the leaves?

6. I have no clue why some of the leaves are significantly bigger than the other. How do you make the leaves grow bigger. I give quarter strength liquid fertilizer every other day when watering. I am planning to switch to full power every 7 days after putting it outdoor under indirect sun. I wonder which setting is better.

7. Some new leaves are incomplete or broken and some have dead tips. Am I putting too much fertilizer for it?

8. How many cuttings are appropriate for a 12" pot?

Ed

Ed,

Pothos produce giant leaves in a greenhouse where there is very bright indirect light all day long, high humidity, and warm temps. You cannot duplicate this in your home and fertilizers, soil mixes, and pruning are not effective substitutes. The new growth will gradually become smaller as the plant adapts to its new, less than ideal environment in your home.

Your pots MUST have drainage holes. Putting drainage material in the bottom of the pot does not help.

It is best to put as many cuttings as you can squeeze into a small pot.

It is normal for new leaves to become dull as they age. Use a little mineral oil or leaf shine to restore the lustre. Misting tends to add to the dullness because of the minerals in the water, particularly if your tap water is on the hard side.

Stop fertilizing. It isn't going to help and may be doing some damage. There is more than enough nutrients in the soil.

Thanks, Will.

What you said about the conditions make sense. There are a few things I may be able to do to improve the growing conditions.

1. Double pot - it is not easy to find a 10-12" inner pot with holes that fit inside its current ceramic pot though. I wonder where the gardeners get those inexpensive plastic pot.. I threw many of those out but not as big as 10-12"

2. I can have a humdifier right undeneath the plant. It may not create a tropical jungle for it but it would be the highest humidity spot in the apartment.

3. I have couple plant lights. I think one is a HSF bulb and the other is a florescent type. May be I use the florescent directly on the wall behind the plant to create an indirect light. I used to keep the light on 18 hours a day on some plants because the northern exposure of the apartment. How exactly do you create indirect light?

The plant used to be in the office on top of couple filtered florescent tubes with very little sunlight. It turned itself into a small jungle of 15-20 feet branches.


Do you think these would improve the growing conditions?

You may not need a pot as large as 10 inches. Your pothos will do best in the smallest pot that the rootball will squeeze into. 10" and 12" plastic grow pots are standard sizes. Any place that either grows or sells plants of that size should have some.

The humidifier is fine, but probably will not be the key for getting the large leaves that you want.

No artificial light is as good as natural light. However, standard fluorescent lights are better than any other lights. Keep the light as close to the plant as possible and leave it on for about 16 hours per day.

Bright indirect light is the brightest possible light without having the sun's rays shine directly onto the leaves. A north window has indirect light all dayt long. An east window has indirect light in the afternoon and a west window has indirect in the morning. Artificial light is never as intense as natural light, so it is consider indirect and can shine directly on your pothos without damage.

I saw some tubes in the store yesterday. Couple models that were supposed to simulate natural lights have pretty high illums and color temperature(3 times as much as the regular plant light or the standard tube..) They were less than $5 so I am giving it a try.

Standard fluorescent tubes work just as well as the more expensive full spectrum tubes. Sorry I didn't catch you sooner, but keep it in mind when you need to replace them.

I have tried the standard tube last year with the Pothos winding around a trelis in an up and down fashion. It didn't do too well(many leaves drop on the trelis & weak branches) It is not clear that has something to do with the light or the trelis or the location that gets 2-3 hours direct sun since the branches sittings on the bottom away from the light did best in size and color.

I suspect the trelised branches didn't do too well because they were too long - more than 20 feet long. After I cut them back to about 6-10 feet long, they thrived again.(without any artificial light).

One thing is quite obvious. The stronger the branches, the bigger the leaves. However, the longer the branches, the skinnier they are which lead me to think I need to keep the branch to certain length. Is there any good way to develop strong branches? I am not certain maintaining a short length would automatically force the branch & leaves to get bigger. I am nipping new buds on branches that goes over 10 feet.

I just overwatered the plant a week ago and it has been dripping so I don't want to put a humdifier at it until it comes back normal(water wise). And I still haven't found a growth pot to double pot the whole thing. It is not easy to repot a 6 feet tall circular trelised Pothos(I built a trelis with 8 bamboo sticks close to the rim of the 12" circular pot to maximize surface area.) with 10" soil. The whole thing is very heavy.


I guess whether the more expensive full spectrum tubes do better or not depends on which range of the spectrum and intensity the particular plant needs. I can see illum intensity and even spectrum would not matter to Pothos. Do nurseries use regular tubes too? I have seen nurseries using both - regular and the super bright tubes.

I bought the tube for an experiment to grow sun-loving tomato on the fridge top(and thinking to use it later on the Pothos. It is still too cold here in NY. I started too late in the season (with the cold weather, I am not sure starting early helps) so I thought I would catch up with a full spectrum tube shining 4 inches from the tomato seedlings 24 hours a day. I got the first leaves in 4 1/2 days. seed germinations probably don't need light or does it? Now, I just need to figure out a way to keep the moisture high. (currently, I put a saran wrap with holes on top of the planter to reduce moisture loss but I can probably remove it once the seedlings start budding secondary leaves.

[ May 27, 2003: Message edited by: tomato345 ]

Pothos do best when long stems are regularly pruned back to a length of 2 to 4 inches. As you have observed, when vines get too long the new growth becomes weaker and the older leaves start to drop off. Pinching out the new growth won't help. You have to cut long stems way back. New growth is always at the ENDS of the stems.

I have yet to see a pothos look good on a trellis. They never attach themselves to a trellis and eventually they gate long and straggley. Nurseries often grow them attached to bark covered poles, but that is hard to do in the home.

Leaf size is largely determined by the intensity and duration of the light at the time the leaves emerge. Cutting back longer, weaker stems AND adding more light will help produce stronger new stems and leaves.

Full spectrum fluorescents may have some added value for flowering and fruit-bearing plants, but a combination warm and cool white standard tubes are best for foliage plants. That is what most growers use.

Yes, branches that are less than 6" long give the most vibrant color leaves, albeit small ones without any help.

Most Pothos branches are linear so it isn't easy to make them look good on trelis. I tried couple ways: make a blanket and giant circular cone trelis.

In the blanket attempt, I just let the branches wrap top down on the trelis. It was definitely not pretty when it was sparse at first. And it was too disorderly as the branches grow and tangle each other. It didn't help when the top leaves dropped.

The covered pole didn't seem too difficult to do. The design uses limited branches or material, which may be part of the reason why it is popular with nursery. With the amount of branches I have, I can make 10 6 feet tall poled Pothos easily. I don't like the idea of stable gunning the branches to the pole, which is what nurseries normally do since it is quick and the plant normally survive. I am not sure why only few nurseries use nylon ties since ties do not hurt plant and it does a reasonable job in anchoring branches to a barked pole or rough surface. A pole 's surface area is rather limited. You can only attach so many branches on one pole before it turns into a mess.

I made a cone shaped trelis to see if it can grow into a Pothos christmas tree. You are right. It seldom attaches itself to trelis. It was mostly supported by leaf hooks, ties or simply hanging on the trelis.

The other problem of constant pruning is the rate Pothos grows. On my oldest plant, the branches grow long fast. The others grows relatively slow so pruning is easy. I already have 6 feet long branches bundles in every room. I hate to junk them but I can't turn the apt. into Pothos jungle either. What do you do with all those healthy cuttings?

Some of the new leaves are broken or incomplete heart shape. Some new leaves have black dry sides on the edges. Of course, many are nicely green, waxy. But what can be possible causes for the incomplete/broken new leaves and the black dry/burnt edges?

One other thing I noticed: Cuttings grow slowly until they merge together to form a giant root mass. I don't know if this is true though since I only have one sample. The mother plant is a 8" root ball(about 5-7 years old). The branches grow very fast on the mother than on the cuttings.

What kind of soil Pothos like? Most of the time I use potting mix with perlite and peat moss or whatever at hand. The mother originally have small granule soil. It turned out fine with potting mix but the cuttings didn't seem to move for a whole year.