Why is my Golden pothos not growing? The untold secret.
The deep green variegated shiny leaves of the Golden pothos can easily grab your attention. These beautiful trailing vines are relatively easy to grow and easy to care for. It is so difficult to kill the plant, that it is, therefore, called The Devil’s ivy.
Apart from their beautiful stance, these plants are also grown for their air-purifying characters. According to a study conducted by NASA, these plants can actually clean some harmful volatile organic pollutants from the atmosphere like benzene, formaldehyde, etc.
Although it is easy to grow and maintain the plant, some people face the problem of the slow growth of their Golden pothos.
Usually, the Golden pothos does not grow properly if it is not getting a suitable environmental condition. Too much or too little watering, inappropriate lighting conditions, lack of nutrients, etc. are might be the probable reasons for the Golden pothos to not grow properly.
This blogpost will completely help you to identify the real problem with your Golden pothos, and how to tackle it. Stick to it, there are some secrets.
Why is my Golden pothos not growing?
If your golden pothos is not growing, it might be due to the following reasons. Check each one of them and analyze what is the real problem with your pothos plant.
- Overwatering or underwatering
- Unwanted temperature variations
- Lack of proper lighting conditions
- Problems related to fertilizer
These are the environmental factors that help to grow a pothos plant with proper shine. However, the lack of one factor or multiple factors affects the growth to a large extent.
In this article, we are going to discuss each of the factors in detail and analyze how they are affecting the growth of a Golden pothos plant.
1. Overwatering
This is the problem with most of the people. They usually tend to overwater their pothos plant. Every time you are applying an excessive amount of water, your plant is standing in waterlogging conditions. Eventually, the plant roots will start rotting.
Once the rotting of the roots started, it is a difficult situation for any plant. Because the root is the supplier of water and nutrients to the whole plant. If it is not working properly, then the entire plant is going to face a lot of problems.
Therefore try to avoid overwatering your pothos plant.
Preventive measures
To prevent the issues related to overwatering you can take a look at the following preventive measures.
- Apply water only when the top two-inch layer is dry. Never allow standing water in the potting soil. It will lead to root rot.
- Choose a well-draining potting soil. It will also solve this issue up to some extent.
- If your current potting soil is not draining properly, then try to add some perlite into it.
- Choose a perfect pot according to your plant size. The too big pot will take more time to dry the soil. and too small pot will make your plant root-bound.
- The pot should also have a good number of drainage holes.
- When you are uprooting the plant either for repotting or for propagation, check the root rot symptoms, if found any rotted root, then remove it immediately.
2. Underwatering
Underwatering is not an issue for the Golden pothos plant, however, sometimes lack of water for a real long period of time (like three to four weeks or even a couple of months) is going to affect the growth of your Devil’s ivy plant.
Pothos plant can easily survive even if not watered for a couple of weeks or like 15 to 20 days. But a dry period longer than that is really going to trouble your plant.
Your plant will start wilting and drooping after facing a prolonged dry period. There will be no further leaf growth.
Preventive measures
To prevent the issues related to underwatering you have to
- Regularly check the potting soil of your pothos plant. If the topsoil is looking dry, then go for watering.
- You can use self-watering pots to automate the process of watering.
- If you can increase the humidity of the atmosphere near your plant, then it will help to keep your potting soil moist.
3. Temperature
Golden pothos is native to the Solomon Islands. These are the tropical areas and high temperatures and high humidity prevail in these areas throughout the year.
Hence as a plant, native to tropical areas, the Golden pothos also loves a warm and humid environment. The temperature around 20 to 32 degrees Celcius (68 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit) is ideal for this plant.
A temperature variation of plus or minus 5 degrees Celcius is OK for this plant, however higher than that should be a matter of great concern.
Low temperatures are more detrimental to Golden pothos. The plant is more susceptible to chilling injury.
Hence when the temperature goes below 12 degrees centigrade, the Golden pothos will not grow.
Preventive measures
To prevent the effects of low temperature you can take the following preventive measures
- Keep your plant in a warm place, especially during the winter.
- Keep your plant away from the window glass.
- Choose an area that is getting bright indirect sunlight, and allow your plant to sit there idly. Such places are comparatively warmer.
- You can use a room heater also. But try to keep the environment humid.
4. Improper lighting condition
A good lighting condition is always important to keep the Golden pothos plant healthy and growing. Pothos loves to grow in indirect bright sunlight.
It can also bear direct sunlight, but should not be exposed for long durations. Otherwise, you will end up burning your plant.
A very dark lighting condition is also not suitable for the plant. In this condition, the Golden pothos plant will struggle to grow.
To provide a good lighting condition make sure that your plant is getting bright indirect sunlight where it has been kept.
An east-facing window or a north-facing window is the ideal place for this plant to sit in. But it should strictly prevent direct sunlight to fall on the plant.
A good lighting condition can help the plant to carry out photosynthesis properly and also helps the plant to grow better. It is very important to keep the leaf variegation.
A bright area also has a slightly higher temperature, which is essential for the plant, as discussed above. It can easily dry the excess water from the potting soil in no time.
5. Lack of nutrients
Although the Golden pothos plant doesn’t need any fertilizers to be applied, it is recommended to add a balanced liquid fertilizer to the potting soil at least once in two months.
Lack of proper soil nutrients also stops the growth of the Golden pothos plant.
You have to keep the potting soil fertile so that the plant can get the necessary nutrients out of it. Organic fertilizers are mostly recommended for the plants. Because they are healthy and nature friendly.
Pro tip
If your Golden pothos plant is not growing, I would advise you to go for repotting. Select a good fertile and well-draining potting soil and repot your pothos plant. During repotting check if there is any symptom of root rot.
Also after repotting take care of watering, lighting, and temperature as discussed above. Your plant will surely start to grow.
Final thoughts
I hope you can now get the answer about Why your Golden pothos is not growing. Check every growth controlling parameters and decide where you can modify so that you can able to provide the best possible growing condition to your Golden pothos plant.
Only by taking care of a few obvious things, you can resume the growth of your beloved Golden pothos plant.
THANKS FOR READING
HAPPY GARDENING.
