This is the story of my Pothos plant. To tell this little tale, I have to go back a ways to my father-in-law’s grandmother’s well cared for plant. It puts me to shame to imagine someone doing such a wonderful job caring for a plant that it gets passed down in any form at all, but its also inspiring.
That loved plant was passed to my mother-in-law, and she has kept it happy and healthy ever since, taking cuttings and starting new happy plants to pass around the family.
This is where I come in. No, not my plant. Me. That is because this lovely Pothos is not my first attempt. Oh no. If this Pothos journey has taught me anything it’s humility, and an appreciation for plant lovers who will keep giving you cuttings after you’ve killed more than one.
My mother-in-law gave me, I believe, three or four cuttings before I finally found some success. That’s where the humility comes in, because you really have to eat your pride in order to tell someone “Hey, I killed that plant you gave me, can I try again?”. Never once did she make me feel bad, and she was always happy to let me try again, which is probably the only reason I managed to keep asking to do so. Killing plants is very discouraging.
When I finally had one survive the rooting phase and grow out into an actual vine I was thrilled. And then I got too excited. I decided to use clear command hooks to drape the vine artfully across my wall like in all the Instagram photos. The problem? Turns out I don’t water plants well when I have to bring the water to them. I get nervous about over or under watering, or about the water running out the bottom and over flowing the tray to get everything wet. Next thing you know, I have a very sad plant. It looked pretty while it lasted though.
At some point, I tried hanging a plant from the ceiling. That way I could get some romantic draping without attaching it to the wall. You may notice I said “a” plant, and not “the” plant. That’s because I can’t remember if the previous Pothos survived the command hook experiment or if this was yet another cutting. I’m leaning towards it being a new cutting, considering my current plant isn’t in a terracotta pot, but I suppose it’s possible I re-potted it. Anyway, I made my own macrame hanger to set the pot in, and screwed a plant hook in the ceiling and it was lovely.
Do you know how difficult it is to get a plant pot back into a macrame hanger? I didn’t. Turns out it’s really fiddly, especially if there are leaves hanging out the side of the pot, and you just watered it so splashes keep spilling out of the attached tray every time you tilt it just a little too much. Don’t worry, I’m fairly certain this plant didn’t die, but things definitely got dicey for a bit.
So finally, finally I figured myself out. I needed a no-fuss hanging container that I could lift the plant in and out of easily, and I couldn’t do anything that made my Pothos difficult to move to the sink for watering. Now the new problem arose. During all this time I had not figured out a watering schedule. All I knew was, wilty leaves = watering time. With my most recent plant however, I was apparently letting things get too far because while I kept it healthily alive, it didn’t grow an inch.
My current Pothos had less than five leaves between I believe two rooted cuttings. And they weren’t getting any longer. Something about my watering methods combined with the lower amount of sunlight in the new location wasn’t working, but I didn’t have time to figure it out at the time. If the plant was alive I considered it a success. Then, December 2024 happened.
Nothing too crazy occurred, but it was the perfect storm for my poor Pothos. I had noticed it had wilted a little, and told myself to water it, but got distracted the way you do around the holidays. Then we got sick. I don’t even remember what we had, I just remember it was bad and there was no way I was climbing a chair to fetch down a plant. I have vague memories of looking at it from the kitchen table and mourning it in advance because I just couldn’t handle taking care of it.
So when I finally was better the plant looked well and truly gone from this world. However, it had proved hardy in the past, and it seemed cruel to just throw it out without giving it a chance, so I gave it one last, good soaking and left it.
And it. Came. Back.
I can’t tell you how surprised I was that the stubborn thing had survived. I suddenly had new energy to figure this plant out. After holding out for that long, it seemed wrong to do anything less. I was going to do it this time!
Fortunately, we had a plant-savvy friend staying with us at the time, and he gave me some advice on how to figure out a watering schedule. I settled on once a week to start and see how the plant handled it. Turns out, this one really liked that schedule, and it started growing again!
One of the two cuttings had been a total loss, but the remaining one was going strong now. I started counting every new leaf, and watching every week to see if a new one was starting. I even spread some of the excitement to my kids, who would occasionally count for me and gleefully tell me how many I had now. I decided I would take a cutting when I got to ten leaves, and we watched and waited and reminded each other how many there were occasionally on the way to the big 1-0.
In the end, I didn’t take a cutting at ten leaves, but it was still a milestone number. My plant still seemed small somehow, and I hated to cut it for fear of messing it up. I had just figured out how to keep it alive, what if I ruined it? But finally, the other day, at thirteen leaves, I mustered up the courage and gave my baby a haircut.
I ended up cutting of five leaves, which terrified me, but gave more chances of having at least one successful rooting. It made me glad I’d gone past ten since I had extra to use. Also, my Pothos didn’t look near as sad after the cut as I was worried it was, or as it probably would have if I’d cut five off when there were only ten total. I followed this video tutorial up until the vase of water stage, but mine will be going into soil, not a hydroponic pot once they’ve rooted.
According to the video, the last leave on the vine (the one at the top of this pic), doesn’t usually work well. He discarded his, but I didn’t have the heart to with mine, considering how worried I am about all of them failing, so I kept it.
I’m really hopeful that I’ll get at least one or two rooted baby plants, especially since I seem to struggle to get them established in dirt. I’ll feel a lot better when the survival of my plant doesn’t rest on a single vine though. Wish me luck!
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