As long as you use a well-drained soil and do not allow water to sit in a drip saucer, let it dry significantly between waterings, the pot size should be irrelevant, and you may see even faster growth when the roots have plenty of room to roam and multiply quickly. The fact that you've had it for 3 weeks gives no indication of how long it's been in its' current pot/soil.

Feel free to show a pic of your plant if you're hesitant. You can add 1 pic per entry.

Thanks for the help. The photo is from my phone camera, so it is not the best. But you can clearly see the lighter, brighter green new leaves (third rhizome from the right) which unfurled from their sheath just in the past 48 hours!!! No kidding. Before that, it looked like the "sheathed" growth of an unopened rubber-tree plant leaf. This is in addition to the other new shoots that have appeared since I got the plant on May 11. This rapid growth ASTONISHED me, as on-line research kept referring to ZZ plants as "very slow growers." (I am joking with my friends that my ZZ plant somehow aspires to be an oak tree, or that atheletes must be sneaking into my home when I am at work and dumping performance enhancing drugs into its pot. LOL.) I watered it on the 18th and watered it again last night, June 1, and am sticking with watering every 2 weeks Should I water more often? The current pot is about 10 inches across. Last night I purchased one that is about twice that size (the largest one I could find with drainage holes) and will re-pot the plant tonight.

Sounds like there's a lot of excitement with this new plant! Cool. It's already a nice, big plant. Very pretty!

Only you can determine when the soil has dried, so nobody else could prescribe a watering schedule. Throughout the year, plants will use water at different rates, so most people find a regular schedule doesn't work well for the plant, just the person watering.

After you change the pot, the water use rate will likely be a little slower, maybe a lot slower. Just keep your eye on it. Picking it up (for plants that aren't too heavy,) can help determine if it's much more dry, it will weigh a lot less.

Very interesting. I would not have been able to figure that a pot change would affect water use rate. This is my only plant and it is new project, so I can be accused of being a bit obsessive. But it's such an exotic-looking plant! And EVERY SINGLE authoritative source that I find on-line refers to ZZ plants as slow growers, so I am getting quite a laugh about that. Thanks again.

Hi purpleinopp! No, it isn't my first plant. I had a Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia Purpurea) that lasted for 10 years. But this is my first ZZ plant, so everything is new. I have noticed from other photos on the site that ZZ rhizomes seem to grow in dense little thickets, and that seems to be what is happening, though it would also be a lot of fun to see a single 6-foot-tall ZZ rhizome! The window is barely northeast, being just 20 degrees off magnetic north.

I am of two minds about having more than one plant: First, I think it would be nice to have more greenery in my apartment. On the other hand, I like to be able to completely baby and spoil just one. Also, I have an indoor cat who likes to chew on things, though happily, she does not go near the ZZ. What is the explanation/mechanism for water rate use being slower after repotting?

Putting a plant in a bigger pot would mean there is an amount of soil that does not have roots growing in it. Moisture must evaporate from the unrooted sector since it will not get used by the roots until the roots permeate the new soil area. The fact that the bigger pot holds more soil would also come into play, whether or not there was a plant living in it.

Any plant that produces rhizomes will eventually fill every bit of a pot if healthy, but this is not an indication that this or any plant would prefer to be so restricted, just that the plant has run out of room to expand.

Sorry, I have no knowledge about cats and their relationship to any house plants. Absolutely nothing wrong with wanting a single plant, sorry if the warning came across that way. My daughter owns a single house plant, and my brother recently added a 2nd one, after 10 years of just one, and much recent internal debate over the pros/cons of doubling that amount.

Thanks for detailed the explanation. I also got a good education on the root system when repotting. Perhaps the original pot was too small (and thus my timing quite good) because the mass of roots were quite intertwined with each other and confined to a dense, thick area -- not spread out at all. I am looking at individual leaves for signs of yellowing around the edges, as I read somewhere that this would be in indication of over-watering. I noticed that on some of the leaves when I first purchased the plant at a nearby Home Depot, but so far, no other yellowing. Will the leaves that turned yellow around the edges regain their green color or just expire?

Generally once leaves turn yellow they don't recover. It is possible for leaves to recover if the yellowing was from chlorosis and proper treatment is given in time. Repotting can cause a plant to discard a leaf or two, not a cause for alarm. After readjusting itself, assuming conditions are acceptable, a new growth spurt should more than make up for the lost leaves.

When the soil in any pot drains well, drained in a sink or freely outside, not allowed to sit in a wet drip saucer, overwatering is almost hard to do if you tried. Letting plants get reasonably dry, then watering so water flows out of the drain holes, should be a plan most plants can live with even in a less than ideal soil. So if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but anticipate that after time, any plant should need repotting if growing well.

I would encourage you to ask these questions in the house plant forum, not fair to limit yourself to just my input on a plant so many other people have.

Generally once leaves turn yellow they don't recover. It is possible for leaves to recover if the yellowing was from chlorosis and proper treatment is given in time. Repotting can cause a plant to discard a leaf or two, not a cause for alarm. After readjusting itself, assuming conditions are acceptable, a new growth spurt should more than make up for the lost leaves.

When the soil in any pot drains well, drained in a sink or freely outside, not allowed to sit in a wet drip saucer, overwatering is almost hard to do if you tried. Letting plants get reasonably dry, then watering so water flows out of the drain holes, should be a plan most plants can live with even in a less than ideal soil. So if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but anticipate that after time, any plant should need repotting if growing well.

I would encourage you to ask these questions in the house plant forum, not fair to limit yourself to just my input on a plant so many other people have.

Thank you for IMMENSELY lowering my stress level about watering. NO JOKE. It was my biggest concern. I have a drip saucer, but I placed a couple of small decorative bricks in it and the pot sits atop those bricks. Thus, the pot is never sitting in standing water, which I guessed would be a bad thing. Is that suffcient, or should I IMMEDIATELY empty the drip water? I also did this figuring that I could collect any soil that came out with the water after it evaporates.

I am posting also in another discussion, simply titled "ZZ Plant." I found it after I started this one, asking for help. Not sure if that is in the houseplant section or not, but I will look in houseplants too.

The photo is of the ZZ in its new home. I have rotated the plant since the last photo.