Table of Contents
- Why Chop Your Plant
- What To Propagate in
- Where to Chop
- How To Place The Cutting In The Media
- Long Term Care
- When To Pot Them Up
- How to Pot Them Up
Pothos are easy plants to propagate because they grow so prolifically and invasively. This makes them fantastic for beginners to learn how to propagate with. Even if you are a seasoned plant parent this may be something that you have not tried yet. It is very easy and very simple. There is no need to be scared or intimidated.
Why Chop Your Plant
Chopping up a plant sounds really rough and horrible but it is actually really great for your plant. It can help them bush out and help them vine out more. It can help them get back the variation that they have lost when chopped back to that point and allowed to regrow in better lighting conditions. There are quite a few different reasons as to why you would want to chop your Epipremnum.
Other reasonings behind it may be that you want to make a more full plant. You need more of this plant to plant on top to grow and have it look more full and bushy for you. Sparse plants can look unhealthy and unappealing to some.
Another reason may be that your plant has just grown so prolifically, so quickly, and so much, that you do not know what to do with it and it can’t stay like it is. When it gets to that point it’s definitely really OK to just go ahead and chop it. It is not going to damage the plant long-term in any way. They will be all right and they will definitely grow back. It is not going to hinder the plant. Especially one as prolific as a pothos or Epipremnum Aureum.
What To Propagate in
We do have a whole post on the different media that you can propagate your plant in but today we’re just going to be using water. Pothos are not picky and can be grown in every type of medium.
Where to Chop
When you’re going to make the cut on your plant you just want to go ahead and go down the vine. You want to decide where you are going to be chopping. You also want to make sure that whatever you are chopping off has some sort of node.
A node on an Epipremnum is where the leaf meets the stem and you feel a little bump there. Generally, there is some type of little brown bump on the other side which is actually the start of an aerial route. If you have a really humid environment you may even actually have a long root already coming from that node. It is perfectly fine. Do not chop that off. Keep that on there. You want that on your cutting because it will change and grow into a water root or soil root.
Make sure when you make your chop that it is between the nodes because the notes are what has the building blocks of life in it for your plant to be able to grow more plants. This plant will not propagate without a node. So if somebody gives you a little stick or leaf and it doesn’t have a little bump, it doesn’t have aerial roots, and it doesn’t have a node that sticks will just wither away and pass on and be a stick. It is not going to be able to grow into anything. So definitely make that chop on the plant in between the notes.
How To Place The Cutting In The Media
Then you want to go ahead and take those nodes (especially if they have aerial roots) and place them in the water(or media of your choice). You want to have the jar of water not covering the leaves and you want to place it somewhere where there’s going to be quite a bit of light.
Long Term Care
Change the water about once a week to a month depending on if you start noticing the water turning green or filmy and gross. It is better to change it just for your sake. Not really for the plants. This plant would be fine in gross water(unlike Peperomia) but we do not know what is growing in that water with the plant and you do not want that evaporating off into your air. You can have microbes, bacteria, and other stuff growing in there that is not very good for you to breathe in.
How Long Does It Take
You should start to see some new growth within a couple of days. You will start to see little white nubs coming out of the node. That brown hardened aerial root is going to soften up and turn white as well. This is new growth. From roots, it is generally white or green and it should grow quite quickly for you. Especially if it is getting enough light. If it has been about a week and you have not seen any new growth, then generally, you want to move it into a little bit more light and that is going to help kind of kick start things.
Warmth, humidity, and a lot of light when they are propagating are going to help move things along a lot faster. So you already have them in the water. You are giving them sunlight which is warming everything up and then they are going sprout those roots for you.
When To Pot Them Up
When there are pretty long roots in there. There should be 3 or 4 inches minimum of roots and then you can go ahead and pot these up. The more roots the better but definitely don’t rush to pot them up. Too soon and the roots could rot and kill the plant.
How to Pot Them Up
You can use any type of potting soil that you would like. Make sure that it is pre-moistened so that you are not putting your propagations directly from the water into a very dry environment. That will shock the root system and create an unhealthy plant. However, if you use a pre-moistened potting mix then it will feel more like home to these plants, and they will be less in shock and be able to grow more prolifically.
Make sure to keep watering them a little bit more over the next week or so so that way they don’t dry out. Then you can start to slowly stop watering them and let them dry out more and more.
After you start to see new growth on them after you have potted them up you can also put them back in the same pot. Just keep in mind that that little area of the pot will need to be watered a little bit more and that may not be conducive to the other plants that are in that pot. Sometimes it’s better to have them established and then put them together. Your living conditions, plant health, and habits would factor into the success rate of this as well
There you have it! You propagated your plant from start to finish. It does not take very long at all. It is not super complicated. It is very easy and very fun. It is fantastic to see new growth and feel the pride of growing a whole new plant all by yourself.
