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Even with all of the love and care given to it, sometimes your pothos may end up showing some signs of distress. Although a dying pothos isn’t a reflection of your capability to look after it, you should consider leggy growth as a sign of communication that your plant needs a change.
If you’re noticing long pothos vines and your plant isn’t looking as full as it once did, you may be wondering how to make your pothos bushier? All of this is manageable by introducing more bright indirect light.
Pothos, also known as Epipremnum Aureum, is a favorite to almost every beginner plant parent. Simply because they’re so easy to care for.
The nickname Devil’s Ivy was given to the Pothos specifically because they’re virtually indestructible.
Despite how easy they are to care for, there are a few things that can go wrong. Pothos growth is affected by environmental factors like light, humidity, heat, and water.
In this post, you’ll find out how to better care for your Pothos plants, paying special attention to the light that your plant receives.
You’ll also learn how to prune your pothos to ensure that it is always displaying lovely full vines with luscious leaves.
What Is a Leggy Plant?
In the plant community, leggy is used quite commonly to describe a plant with a long stem and few leaves. It can sometimes look like a naked stem.
With pothos plants, it’s quite commonly found in hanging baskets where the plant hangs and trails downwards.
People describe this as either leggy or spindly. Essentially the stem, or the vine in the case of pothos, keeps growing up (or outward) to find adequate light.
Usually, once the plant receives enough light, the leaves will start emerging in order to transfer the energy taken from sunlight into food and helpful nutrients.
If your Pothos is not receiving the necessary light requirements and is in too much shade, you’ll notice that the plant will shoot out longer stems and won’t produce as many leaves.
A leggy plant is often in direct response to the lack of light around the plant.
Leggy growth tends to look strange and unkempt. So, while your plant will make a way to survive the lack of light, it simultaneously makes them look sickly.
A lack of light can also result in various Pothos diseases such as mold and root rot. A leggy plant, while disheartening to some, is not a sign of the end from your Pothos.
It simply needs to be repositioned, and you’ll notice some improvements within a few weeks.
How to Make Pothos Bushy
An eyesore of a leggy plant can be combated by catering to every need the plant may have. This includes paying attention to every detail from the watering schedule to fertilizing.
A bushy pothos is easily achievable through the correct care and by ensuring that it is branching correctly, has enough space to climb, and also that it is pruned correctly.
1. Repot Your Pothos
Firstly, you’ll have to check if your plant needs to be repotted. Check the roots of your plant. Are they stuck together? Does it seem as if there’s no more space for them to grow? Your Pothos may be root bound.
Pothos like to be root bound in some instances but still need some space to develop new roots. If the roots aren’t white and firm, they’ll start decaying slowly and this means that you’ll have to repot into a bigger pot.
Make sure that the new pot isn’t too big or your Pothos will first spend time filling out the roots before sending energy to the new leaves.
2. Add Propagated Pothos Cuttings
Secondly, does your plant’s pot have space for new propagations? If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to fill out your pot, put some props in and along the side of the new pot.
Once they start developing, you’ll have more than one plant in a pot which in essence makes it bushier.
Make sure that the new props have higher humidity and more water in order to ensure strong roots on new propagations.
3. Trim a Pothos Plant
Thirdly, pruning is a great way to train your pothos and also to ensure that it looks bushier. By cutting off the long and straggly bits, you’re giving the effect that it is a lot fuller than it is.
Trimming your pothos also allows the plant to send energy to making new branches and will eventually fill out your plant as well.
How to Make Pothos Grow Faster
If you’re wondering how fast do pothos grow, you’re looking at about 12 to 18 inches every month. A mature pothos plant can reach up to 40 feet high. So if you’re thinking about how to grow Pothos faster, all you need to do is ensure it has all of the right conditions.
While you can’t speed up the natural process of growth, you can ensure that it is at its optimal growth rate. Thankfully, pothos plants are naturally fast growers.
It doesn’t hurt to know how to grow pothos faster. A pothos vine with no leaves will soon have new leaves emerging once you ensure that it’s received the right care and environmental changes.
Soil: A well-draining soil with lots of organic components like coco-peat, biochar, perlite, or vermiculite.
Water: Water on a bi-weekly schedule. Or whenever you notice the top 2 inches of soil is dry.
Light: Pothos need lots of indirect sunlight. Can only stand about 2 hours in direct sunlight, otherwise, you risk scorching.
Humidity: Pothos can survive in low humidity but do much better with higher humidity environments. Make sure that you’re sitting between 50 to 70 percent humidity levels.
Temperature: Your plant will thrive between 58℉ to 86℉.
How to Make Pothos Climb
Pothos are natural climbers. Out in the wild, they’re accustomed to climbing up trees to reach the canopy and get away from the forest floor.
If you want a healthy tropical plant indoors, in a not-so-tropical part of the world, you’ll have to ensure that your pothos has the right support. This comes in the form of moss poles, trellis, or by using invisible plant fixture clips.
Whichever type of support you choose, it’s important to note that the plant will naturally want to climb up. Your plant will be stunted if it’s left to hang and trail downwards.
This is simply because it receives less light the lower it goes. So, the leaves will become smaller and the vines leggier the closer it gets to the ground.
How to Get Pothos to Branch
After you’ve pruned your plant, put it in the best conditions, you’ll notice that your pothos may begin to branch out in new directions, specifically towards the light. You can always ensure the existing vines are trained.
Since plants use their leaves as a way to ingest food in the form of natural light, they will branch out to produce more leaves where there’s more light.
If your pothos is continually vining but not putting out any leaves, this indicates that your plant is not receiving enough light. It will continue to vine until it finds an adequate light source.
You can train your pothos by ensuring that it is branched along a wall or up a moss pole and in the direction of an adequate light source.
This ensures that your plant will always be within an adequately lit environment, and it will have the support to continue growing and putting out more leaves.
How to Prune Pothos
While light is the main cause of a leggy plant, there are other ways of making your plant look better until it can start filling out naturally again.
Pruning pothos is one of the methods many people use to ensure that their plant maintains a full look.
If you’re not sure how to prune a pothos, there’s absolutely nothing that you can do wrong. Pothos are fighters and extremely hardy. They will survive any kind of trimming and pruning.
Similarly, to cutting your bangs, you’ll have to be sure that you’re using the correct shears. Your pruning shears have to be sharp to prevent breaking anything off from the shaft of the stem.
When pruning, be sure to cut above the nodes (little bumps along the vine where new leaves will emerge). These cuttings can be used to start new propagations.
Final Say on How to Grow a Bushier Pothos
A bushier, fuller Pothos is easy to achieve with some TLC and patience. If you’re trimming your plant regularly and checking on its water, soil, and temperature requirements, your pothos will reward you with big, full leaves.
Similarly, a pothos that is in a well-sized pot, given enough fertilizer, and is trained to grow upward, will begin to show you signs of happiness and health.
As long as it receives enough bright light throughout the day and ample heat during the night, you’ll ensure that your pothos won’t be leggy anymore.