How to Divide a Pothos Plant: Latest Methods and Precautions Explained

Many people like to keep some plants and flowers at home, especially in the harsh winter. When you come home from work every day and see lively, vibrant plants, don't you feel great? If you struggle with plant care, why not try growing a pothos (Epipremnum aureum), which is both easy to care for and beautiful.

Pothos is a shade-loving plant that prefers scattered light and is fairly tolerant of shade. It survives as soon as it touches water, and because of its tenacious vitality it is called the flower of life. Pothos also has an extremely strong air-purifying function and is known as a green purifier. Keeping one at home couldn't be more suitable.

Break off a vine and stick it in water, and after a while it will take root and sprout. Or cut it into several sections like this and bury them in a flower pot, and it can also propagate quickly, with no need to worry at all about whether it can be kept alive. The simplest thing is to just buy one and place it on a bookshelf, or a table. Or on a storage rack, and let it grow freely. Wait for the lively vines to slowly hang down.

You can also place it in a corner and let its vines grow against the wall. That way, no matter how the seasons change, you will always have a wall that belongs to spring. If conditions allow, directly placing a patch of greenery on a whole wall is also a good choice.

Pothos propagation generally uses vegetative propagation by stem cuttings. You can layer the pothos, and once sufficient roots have developed you can divide it into pots. The main methods are as follows:

1. In late spring and early summer, cut 15 cm to 30 cm stems, remove the leaves from the 1st to 2nd nodes at the base, and plant them directly in potting soil, 3 to 5 stems per pot, water thoroughly, place in a cool, ventilated spot, and keep the potting soil moist. In about one month they will take root and sprout, and within the same year they can grow into plants with ornamental value.

2. In spring and summer, stem cuttings root easily; for making a totem pole, you must use tip cuttings with large leaves, as this will take shape relatively quickly. Pothos can also be grown in water, but compared with soil cultivation the plant is smaller.

3. You can also cut at the aerial roots and pot them directly, or place the cuttings in water to soak until they root and then transplant them into pots.

Precautions:

1. Leaves turning yellow and falling off, stems rotting: mainly due to overwatering, especially in winter. Pothos requires potting soil with good drainage and cannot tolerate water accumulation in the pot. If this happens, repot promptly.

2. Leaf tips curling and turning withered brown: mainly due to air that is too dry; you should frequently mist the leaf surfaces.

3. Leaf margins turning brown, with withered yellow spots appearing on the leaves: insufficient watering during the growing season; water only when the potting soil has not completely dried out. For totem pole plants, be careful to wet the pole when watering, because some roots grow on the pole.

4. Leaves becoming smaller: when cultivated as a totem pole, pothos must always be kept with the tip growing upward; as soon as it bends downward, the leaves gradually become smaller; also caused by insufficient fertilizer or light.

5. Leaves becoming soft and curved, stems rotting: caused by too low a temperature; pothos is very sensitive to low temperatures below 10°C.