Hi.. I have two pothos cuttings in water for over two years now and they seem well adjusted with lots of water roots.. I also have a couple of pothos plants in soil.. they r doing well for the time being.. my problem is with the new cuttings I got from my now established plants in soil.. none of my cuttings have sprouted roots in water even after over a month.. they start rotting at the cut stem end and the plant goes limp.. the cuttings mostly have 4-5 nodes.. I change the water every week to 10 days.. don't know what m doing wrong!

Hi Kris. Here are some excerpts I copied from a book I have, Variegated Plants; The Encyclopedia of Patterned Foliage by Susan Conder. (I have left out parts that refer to other colors of variegation.) Variegated plants originate naturally as random seedlings, or as sports - mutant variegated shoots on otherwise plain green plants. Yellow and white variegations are caused by imperfect or absent chloroplasts, the granule-like plastids within a cell which contain chlorophyll. In a white- or yellow-edged leaf, the green pigment functions normally in the inner layer of leaf cells, but the outer layer lacks chloroplasts, making the edges white, or contains a preliminary version of chlorophyll, protochlorophyll, creating yellow. A yellow- or white-centered leaf, with green edges, has a defective inner layer of leaf cells. The intensity of leaf colour is affected by the amount of light available. There are exceptions, but generally, variegated plants with glaucous foliage, such as rue and certain hostas, tolerate more sun than all-green kinds. Yellow-variegated leaves colour best in full sun or light shade. White- and cream-variegated leaves, such as variegated apple mint, tend to prefer shade, especially where the soil is dry. I'm confused, too since the explanation of how/why variegation occurs doesn't give any info for mottled or splotchy variegation like that of pothos. I don't like yellow flowers, but I do like yellow leaves - they look great with my other plants, most of which have purple leaves. Agree your plant looks healthy!

Tibean, I've seen people water moss sticks in the erroneous belief that the climbing roots of the plant need water. Could someone be watering the pothos that way? The climbing roots are only functioning as support, so they don't need to be watered. As Petrushka noted, maybe occasional misting to prevent drying, but in my experience, that isn't usually necessary either. Also, I have only a phone screen to see the photo, but I think I see some yellow leaf edges, which likely means the plant is being overwatered. Obviously, that'll increase the likelihood of mold growth. Cut WAY back on water when the plant isn't actively growing. Most plants are more tolerant of drying out a bit than they are of staying wet. Pothos, like a number of other aroids, grows larger leaves as it grows upward. The higher it climbs, the larger the leaves get. You can see this phenomenon even in the growth of the plant in the photo. Pothos allowed to climb up trees into the canopy can grow 2-foot leaves. Even more interestingly, once a stem reaches a height and drops back down, the leaves on the dangling portion of the stem become smaller again. As Petrushka said, providing something to climb is imperative if you want large growth.

Do you live in a large city? While a 2-week wait (or longer) for the soil to dry down is fairly common, commonality doesn't mean the plants that grow in it are going to show appreciation. Let's work on that point, and I have some other ideas that will allow you to make adjustments that might fix whatever is going on. That you can go long intervals between waterings w/o under-watering means there is an excess of water in the grow medium for at least a week after a thorough watering and perhaps longer. I know you've been at GW for awhile now, so you've probably read my tips on how to significantly reduce the amount of excess water your medium can hold. I'll outline them in case you're already familiar. * You can use items in the pot bottom as ballast to displace a large fraction of the grow medium that would otherwise be filled with excess water. * If the pot is of manageable size, moving it downward then sharply upward while holding the pot over the sink can remove ALL excess water from the pot. * You can tip the pot when done watering, which also removes a good measure of excess water. * You can use a wick through the side of the pot exactly where the sidewall meets the bottom (that's the best spot) or through the drain hole. Compare B to A to see what tipping your pots gains you; and compare E to A to see what a wick can do. Figure D is one way of using an item as ballast, but there are other set-ups. Sometimes, when the bark is too large, you'll get stratification where the peat migrates to the bottom of the soil column (causing it to remain wet for long periods) while all the bark is at the top of the soil column; but through the tell, it would seem you'd be picking up on that. Still, it's worth investigating when you repot. Wet soil and organic forms of N can combine to cause ammonium toxicity, and your fertilizer derives all of its N from urea. This is a very common issue but one seldom diagnosed. Your fertilizer doesn't contain Ca or Mg. Garden lime serves as not only a pH adjuster, but as a source of Ca and Mg as well. The magnesium fraction of garden lime is more than 125X more soluble in water than the calcium carbonate it contains, so it's not uncommon for a planting to need a Mg boost after a couple of years, especially when using a fertilizer that contains no Mg. I used to use and recommend MG 12-4-8 or MG 24-8-16 because I hadn't yet found Foliage-Pro 9-3-6. It has ALL nutrients essential to normal growth, and serves admirably as a complete single source nutrition package. I use it for all plants except tomato and hibiscus. For those, I still use it, but I increase the amount of K it contains for hibiscus and tomato by adding ProTeKt 0-0-3, which also contains silicon, which I have found makes a big difference in that it helps plants better tolerate heat/cold, too wet/too dry, insect herbivory and disease pathogens. You might want to try the Foliage-Pro 9-3-6. In the meanwhile, you can try adding a dose of Epsom salts with a solution strength equal to 1/4 level tsp/gal. I almost never recommend dosing with anything aimed at providing a single nutrient, but in this case there is so little probability of a negative result it seems reasonable. Finally, the damage is concentrated in areas of the leaf where the variegation is lightest. If these plants get much foll sun, it could be sunburn. The pigment, chlorophyll, actually protects the leaf's photosynthesizing apparatus from solar overload. Leaf tissues with little to no chlorophyll are much more sun-sensitive than their greener neighbors. Al