There, of course, is a big difference between an indoor pothos plant that is growing slowly (perhaps due to environmental conditions) and one that has practically stopped growing despite being one of the fastest indoor houseplants in terms of growth rate.
It can be super frustrating if there are no new leaves, no fullness or bushiness to the growth, no long, elegant vines that cascade or climb, just the pothos in the same state for months.
When I was house-sharing as a student, there was a gorgeous Golden Pothos that was pretty but didn’t do much growing. It sat atop a bookshelf, and stayed alive and well without ever a complaint, but it barely changed in the 2 years I lived there!
The only visible changes were that it produced a 2 or 3 of long, thin vines with leaves very far spaced several inches apart, and as I was new to houseplants, I just assumed that is how pothos grows indoors.
The truth is the pothos is a tough survivor, and its low growth was just conserving its limited resources, as growth or new leaves is a resource-intensive endeavour.
However, I stopped wondering and did some research into how pothos actually grows in its native environment, as a climbing tropical vine (think of it like English Ivy) with airy roots, warm, and plenty of filtered light through the tree canopy (it climbs up trees so that it doesn’t have to compete for light on the forest floor).
I implemented some of these lessons, and guess what… the growth increased in size, the leaves got bigger, and the plant looked fuller and all around much healthier.
If your pothos is not growing as much as you’d like, there is usually an environmental reason that can be sorted. And if you want your favourite golden pothos to grow a bit faster and bushier, there are a few adjustments to their care that make all the difference.
In this article, I’ll uncover…
- Why has the growth slowed down for your pothos plant
- What tactics have made the biggest difference for my pothos (and others I rescued)
- How to make your pothos fuller and bushier, rather than just have longer vines.
- The interesting reason why light, soil and structure matter more than you’d think.
First of all: Is your Pothos Actually Not Growing at all, or Just Growing ever so slowly?
Before we try to speed up the growth of your pothos, we need to always ask one question first…
What time of year is it, as pothos naturally slows down in Winter in colder rooms (think cold window sills at night) and during periods with low light.
So if it is January or February and your pothos hasn’t grown much in months, it’s completely normal.
However, it’s more concerning when…
- There are no new leaves growing for months on end
- The vines are becoming thinner in girth rather than thicker, healthy vines
- The leaves are of a small size
- The vines are leggy with fewer leaves (we like dense bushy vines!)
- The growth of your pothis looks relatively static, even during the growing months of spring and summer
This means your pothos, which should be a speedy grower, isn’t growing, so there is an environmental cause we need to identify and rectify.
1. Low Light intensity is the #1 Reason Pothos Stops Growing Quickly
The first thing to consider is the hours of light and the intensity of light that your pothos has.
Pothos is often marketed as a low light plant on the labels at supermarkets, but in my experience, that phrase is misleading, as it can tolerate lower levels of light, but it doesn’t become the bushy, fun plant we all know and love.
When opotho is in a low-light room, such as a dark office, the growth is slower, thinner, and it has even fewer leaves than its friends that reside in brighter conditions. It’ll stay alive as pothos is hardy, but it won’t win any competitions…
Here’s what I noticed from experience…
I once compared two different cuttings that were pruned from the same mother plant over winter.
- One stayed in a bright room, but it was several feet away from the window and on a shelf not directly facing the light.
- The other cutting was much closer to the light, and it even got the help of a small grow light on darker days that I was using for my succulents, which really don’t like Winter!
The difference was very clear within 2 months. The brighter plant kept producing several new leaves even in winter, whereas the other one barely grew at all.
My plan of action now…
If a pothos is not growing as much as it should, I move it…
- closer to a bright window, with bright indirect light
- Sometimes I place it in a bathroom, as they tend to be light, especially if it has frosted glass, as this diffuses harsh direct sunlight. I also place it in a room with a south-facing window, but use a sheer curtain to diffuse the direct sunlight, which can scorch.
- If I want a prize winning pothos, I use a grow light, which makes the biggest difference to growth, honestly, than any other tip in this article! I am currently doing an experiment to document and measure the difference it makes, and I’ll update this article with the results when I am done.
An interesting quirk I noticed is that for variegated pothos, this matters even more. If a Marble Queen or golden pothos starts to produce green leaves without stark variegation, it’s a sign your pothos needs a greater light intensity to regain its variegation.
2. Pothos Actually Grows Faster When It Climbs Rather than Cascades
I learned this tip from an expert grower who was telling me, “The best way to get your pothos growing is to replicate the conditions of the wild”. Which includes letting it grow up a support as it would a tree rather than trail elegantly off your bookshelf.
Most people grow pothos as a trailing plant, and this is how it is usually marketed, and they look great like this. But in the wild, pothos does not trial it climbs!
This may seem trivial, but it matters more than you’d think.
What happens when it trails as opposed to climbs…
When it trials, the leaves are smaller and thinner and the space between leaves is wider…why is this? Glad you asked…
When a pothos is hanging or trailing in the wild, the plant is sending out its long vines to look for a tree branch to climb so that it can grow up towards bright (yet still indirect) light. It’s a process called Thigmotropism.
When Thigmotropism kicks in, the pothos grows upwards to brighter light, and the pothos shifts from a juvenile form to a mature form, and the leaves can afford to grow bigger as there is more light.
If your plant is trailing, it is growing down, and the plant thinks it’s growing down back to the forest floor, where it’s darker.
Also, you’ll notice on a climbing pothos the vines develop roots which mostly anchor but also draw up water and nutrients, so that the leaves and the growing vines have their own localised source of moisture rather than relying on the roots at ground level. This gives the pothos more resources to grow bigger leaves…
Fun fact…When pothos grow upwards in ideal conditions, they can even develop fenestrations (which are holes in the leaves) similar to monstera plants! I have never seen this on trailing vines, only on healthy climbing vines…
My own findings…
I once took two cuttings from the same plant and allowed one to trial and one to cascade from a pot. The difference was surprising in the sense that what stood out was that the vines of the climbing pothos were a lot thicker. There were also more leaves…
I haven’t been able to get significant fensitratiuons yet, but I am experimenting with another approach involving moisture and light…Essentially, I am trying to recreate the natural environment of a pothos in my own home!
3. Dense soil can slow down growth…
Soil is very important for your pothos plant growth! Normal houseplant soil is okay, but there’s a better potting mix to encourage growth…
The pothos grows in aerated soil that is loose rather than dense or heavy. The soil needs to retain moisture and be structured in a way that allows the roots to respire.
The mix I personally now use after trial and error
My preferred pothos potting soil mix is…
- 2 parts potting soil (from the garden centre, most houseplant potting soil is good)
- The important part is 1 part pine bark chippings from an orchid potting mix…
I have experimented with adding perlite, but honestly, it doesn’t seem to make a difference.
Why this is the best potting soil…
The orchid pine bark keeps the mix porous and well-draining, which allows the pothos roots to expand without being constricted in dense soil and allows for root respiration.
Pothos love this combination of good drainage and decent airflow around the roots.
4. Root bound in a small pot or needs repotting
Pothos are known for tolerating a smaller pot, but the keyword is tolerating. To make it thrive and grow, you may need to repot.
- You need to look whether the roots have filled the pot and have coiled around with no place to go.
- The soil has decomposed down and lost its structure
What to look for…
- Does water rush through out the drainge holes quickly
- The roots have started to circle around the base
- There isn’t much loose soil in the pot
- The growth has slowed even though the light is good.
Here’s what to do…
If the pothos is clearly root-bound in its pot, I’ll repot it into a container just one size larger than the previous pot.
This is crucial..! Do not pot it into a much bigger pot as the pothos is going to invest its growth into growing roots to establish in all the new soil rather than growing larger leaves and vines. Just choose a pot an inch or two bigger in diameter.
A new pot with new soil often kick-starts growth.
5. How to Make your Pothos more Bushy
I’ve found that a lot of people searching for faster growth for the pothos really want to ask how they can make their pothos bushy!
In my experience, you need to get the bushiest plant we need to do some tricks…
The quickest way I’ve found to make pothos more bushy is to do the following…
- prune it
- Then propagate the cuttings
- and replanting the cuttings into the same pot to create the illusion of one bushy plant
The haircut and plug method for bushy pothos
This is the most effective way to achieve the result…
When I have long, leggy vines, what I do is snip them into shorter sections with a node and leaf, root them in water (during the Spring and Summer), and then plant them back into the top of the original pot so it looks more leafy…
Most pothos plants only have a few stems in the pot, but a much fuller pothos often has many more rooted vines growing from the base than people realise, which is a trick used by nurseries and plant influencer types on social media to create the effect.
Over time, this can transform a legg pothos plant into one that looks much denser and fuller.
The paper clip hack
If I don’t want to snip your pothos vine, I sometimes coil the very longest vines around the inside edge of the pot and pin the nodes subtly and lightly against the soil with a bent paperclip.
Those nodes that are pinned to the soil most often root into the compost and produce new growth points for the pothos.
This is a very simple trick used by growers, but it works really well!
6. Counterintuitively, Pruning Can actually increase Growth rather than Slow It Down
This is a surprising revelation to some.
Pruning a plant when you want to increase growth?
This is something I learned through research…pothos follows a growth pattern where the tip of the vine is what is important to the plant. If all the energy is being directed to one long growing tip, the rest of the plant often stays much less leafy.
So to get it all growing, we need to prune!
The goal with snipping the leggy vine back is to stimulate more dormant nodes lower down to become active, and the plant becomes fuller with growth starting again from multiple points.
That is why pruning is always one of the best hacks that I know to improve both fullness and overall vigour of a dormant pothos.
If the gaps between leaves are getting too long, I do not just move the plant to brighter light. I usually prune as well, because those bare sections are not going to fill back in later.
7. The internodes tell you whether the pothos is happy…
One of the best ways to judge a pothos is by the distance between leaves…
What to look for…
- Longer gaps between the leaves usually mean the plant is looking for light or a place to climb.
- Short, tighter spacing between the leaves often means the plant is getting enough energy and has the right conditions to grow.
8. Only use fertilizer when the environment is right
Pothos is not especially demanding in terms of feeding, but if you want the strongest growth and bigger leaves, it does need more nutrients during the spring and summer.
Avoid this mistake…What I don’t do is use a strong fertilizer as this can cause other problems to do with mineral build up.
This is what works best…
I use a balanced houseplant fertiliser at half strength starting in March and stopping mid July (feeding all year can cause the plant to grow weak and floppy)
However, I must emphasise that you should only do this when the lighting is good, and the roots are healthy, as it’s not a good idea to add fertilzer to a poorly plant.