How to get a pothos with yellow leaves?

Pothos is one of the most widely used evergreen climbers to decorate the interior of a home. It has a very high ornamental value, which means that it is a beautiful plant, ideal for beautifying almost every corner of our home. Its maintenance is not very complicated, because in fact it is very adaptable; however, when you don’t feel comfortable, you may have yellow leaves.

There are several reasons why your health may deteriorate to the point of losing your natural green color. But, Is there anything we can do to recover a pothos with yellow leaves? The short answer is yes, but depending on how it is, it will be more or less easy to achieve.

The pothos receives a lot or little water

Image – Wikimedia/Asabengurtza

Irrigation is… irrigation. This is what you need to do if you want your pothos to survive, but controlling it isn’t easy. Now well, what you should never do is see the dry land and think that the plant needs water. This is the first thing to avoid, because it is in fact normal for this most superficial layer to be dry, since it is the one that is most exposed.

For it, To know whether to water or not, you have to introduce a stick at the bottom, and if when you take it out you see that a lot of soil has adhered to it, then you will not water., because it will still be very humid. If our plant is still small, we can take the pot before and after watering: we will notice that the earth weighs much less when it is dry than when it is wet, so with this we will know when it is time to rehydrate our pothos.

Now, how to identify the symptoms of lack or excess watering in this plant? Very simple:

• over watering: If you get more water than you need, we will see the older leaves turn yellow, then brown, from the tips backwards.
• lack of watering: if, on the contrary, it is thirsty, the leaves which turn yellow first will be the most recent, since they are the ones which require the most water to complete their development.

What can we do? In the first case, it will be necessary to stop watering for a few days. You must let the soil dry out, but we will help you by taking the plant out of the pot and wrapping the soil loaf or root ball with a layer or two of kitchen paper. If we see that it gets wet quickly, we will take it out and put in a new one. Then we will leave the plant in a room with plenty of light for one night. The next day, we will proceed to plant the pothos in a new pot, clean, with new soil.

In the second, we will only have one thing to do: hydrate the plant.. To do this, we will immerse the pot in water and leave it like that for a while. After about 30 minutes we will check if when we pick up the pot it weighs more than when we immerse it, and if so we will take it out of the water; if not, we will leave it a little longer. And from there, we will have to water more frequently.

But, how often should the poto be watered? The truth is that it can withstand short periods of drought well, but flooding can cause death by rotting its roots. For it, we recommend rehydrating it, more or less and depending on the temperature, every 4 days during the summer, and every 8 to 10 days the rest of the year. Whenever the time is right, we will pour water into the ground, until it comes out through the drainage holes of the container.

Do you have any pests or diseases?

Related article:

pothos diseases

Although it’s rare to find parasites in our poto, that doesn’t mean you can’t have them at some point, like, when grown in a location where relative humidity is very low and temperatures remain high, or when very thirsty.

In these cases, there is always an insect that wants to take advantage of its weakness, such as the spider mite -which, in fact, is a mite and not a spider-, scale insects or aphids. All those they feed on the sap of the leavesmostly young, as well as sometimes stems.

To delete them, We recommend that you first clean the plant with water to give it a break, then treat it with an ecological insecticidelike diatomaceous earth. If you don’t know what it is, tell yourself that it is one of the best natural products that exist, because it is used to fight practically all parasites. Here is a video in which we explain everything you need to know about it:

On another side, pothos diseases usually appear when it is overwatered, because it is in a pot without holes and/or because it grows in very compact soil It does not drain water well. In all these conditions, fungi can appear and cause the leaves to turn yellow and then brown.

Therefore, it will not be enough to apply a systemic fungicide like this to control these fungi, but it will also we will have to make some changes if we do not cultivate it well. For example, the substrate may need to be allowed to dry out a little more before watering; change the soil if it does not drain water quickly, or plant it in a pot with holes.

Need a bigger pot

If the pothos has yellow leaves for no apparent reason, it may be running out of space to continue growing. It is a plant that can exceed 10 meters in height if it is kept on the ground; that is, it is a tall plant, so It is very important that you change the pot from time to time. But how many times?

Related article:

Pothos: Healing

It will depend on your growth rate, but we will know that it needs a transplant if the roots come out of the holes in the pot; if it has not been changed for more than three years, and/or if when trying to take it out of the pot, the clay loaf does not crumble. If it requires it, we will plant it in a pot about ten centimeters wider with substrate for green plants that you can buy here.

It is exposed to drafts and/or the relative humidity is low

The pothos is a climbing plant of tropical origin which, to live and grow properly, It requires heat, air (but not too much) and high relative humidity, above 50%. This is why it grows so well inside homes on the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic and Canary Islands: the conditions are perfect for it, as it is normal for the temperature at home to stay above 15 ºC all year round, and the relative humidity always exceeds 50%.

But, What happens in these areas very far from the sea and/or rivers? In these, the relative humidity inside the house is usually low or very low, so the leaves turn yellow due to dehydration. To avoid this, they should be watered daily with water suitable for drinking or rain.

Besides, do not put the pothos where there are draftslike those of the air conditioner or the fan, because otherwise, even if the humidity is adequate, we would have the same problem: the leaves would turn yellow and our plant would no longer be pretty.

Hope your yellow leaf potho is recovering.