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In Today’s post, let’s look into 10 secrets and tips on growing money plant or the Pothos varieties whether in soil or in water; Propagating money plants and how to get large sized leaves and a bushy money plant.
Money plant or pothos botanically called Epipremnum aureum is basically a vine and the most common plant found in home gardens and grown indoors in a water container. It is called money plant because it is believed to bring prosperity and good fortune to you. Well, superstitions apart!, But this is one of the NASA recommended air purifying plant. It has many common names like golden pothos, Ceylon creeper, hunter’s robe, ivy arum, silver vine, marble queen, taro vine, devil’s vine or devil’s ivy and so on.
TYPES OR SPECIES OF MONEY PLANTS OR SIMILAR PLANTS:
Golden Money Plant or the golden pothos – it has bright green leaves with golden or yellow splashes.
Split Leaf Money Plant or Monstera Deliciosa – This is a low light indoor plant. This is similar to Philidendeon Broken heart plant with beautiful design of notches within the leaf.
Marble Queen Money Plant – The leaves are creamy-white in color, so less green and less chlorophyll and hence this need more exposure to sunlight for proper photosynthesis.
Marble Prince Money Plant – This has distinct white and green colors on the leaves.
Silver Money Plant or Satin Pothos, Swiss Cheese Money Plant or Monstera obliqua, Chinese Money plant, Jade Money plant (Dark green heart shaped leaves), Neon money plant, Other similar plants but from different families include English ivy – plain and variegated, then various types of philodendrons.
Let’s first start with:
- PROPAGATION OF MONEY PLANTS: This we are discussing first because most of us do not purchase these from nursery or garden center, but instead, you get a small cutting of a money plant and try to grow at home either in water or in soil in containers. Now let’s learn some simple tricks to multiply your pothos plant easily. There are many methods of rooting money plant cuttings. One guaranteed method is soil layering – you just insert one or two nodes of a branch into the soil – mostly into a small pot. Within 2 weeks, you should start seeing roots and you can then cut of this from the mother plant and grow as an independent plant, either in water or soil. You can also successfully grow its cuttings but the most important point to remember is – planting the node into the soil and not just the stem without a node. Many gardeners show money plant can be grown from a single leaf, but this will be successful only if a node is included along with the leaf.
- Another Simple hack to use for faster rooting, especially if you are rooting in water is to use a quarter or half tablet of Aspirin 350 mg dispersible tablet every time you change water. You can check my detailed post on Aspirin and its benefits in gardening.
Now Let’s look into some important care tips and tricks to grow money plant. These are slightly different if you are growing them in Soil vs growing in water indoors. Let’s first quickly discuss on care of money plant in soil, like tricks on how to make the leaves bigger and how to get a bushier money plant. Also remember that they grow faster and better in soil than in water.
- Season: Money Plant can be grown in any season or any time of the year.
- Sunlight Requirement: Money plant can grow in direct sunlight as well as indirect sunlight and even indoors in your home lighting. Though, too much direct sunlight can burn the leaf edges, you need to remember this simple concept for any plant. The green color is imparted to the leaf by a pigment called chlorophyll which is essential for photosynthesis or plant food preparation in simple terms, for proper growth of the plant. If there is lesser green pigment on the leaves like in marble queen varieties or any variegated varieties, then more amount of exposure to sunlight is needed and vice versa. The best place to keep them is under a 50% shade net. They grow faster and healthier under these sun conditions. If you grow them indoors in containers, make sure you keep at the brightest spots like near entrances or near windows to get the bright light.
- Water Requirement: Money plant likes a lot of water, but at the same time it’s a drought tolerant plant and can live without water for many days. Watering Daily or Alternate days is sufficient. Make sure you water deeply and thoroughly and also check patency of drainage holes in containers to avoid water stagnation and root rot. Less frequent watering can result in burning or browning of tips and edges. Over watering can result in leaf yellowing and stunted growth.
- Soil Mix: If you provide a loose well-draining soil to money plant, the roots grow faster and hence the plant grows faster and healthy. You can mix some stuff like cocopeat or peat moss, sand, perlite, vermiculite or whatever you can, along with some 20% compost like cowdung or vermicompost to about 50% garden soil. This forms the best potting mix for money plant.
- Repotting Money Plant: This is only required when you have chosen a small container to grow money plant and the plant roots have bound to the container. If there is stunted growth and leaf yellowing, its time to repot in a larger container.
- Fertilizers: Money plants require very less amount of fertilizers and most of the nutrients are already found in the potting mix and they should be sufficient for 3 to 6 months. Because we grow money plant for its leaves, a handful of nitrogen rich fertilizer like decomposed cow dung or vermicompost, once every 3 months is more than sufficient for one standard container of money plant. Avoid using chemical fertilizers like urea or NPK as they can cause fertilizer burns. To get lush and large sized leaves, You can additionally foliar spray it with Epsom salt solution – like 1 teaspoon of Epsom salt in 1 litre of water and spray over the leaves once in about 10 days.
- Pests and Disease: Money plant is one of the top 5 pest resistance plants. So spraying a pesticide is optional. You can spray neem oil monthly once in a low dose of about 5ml per litre of water. But some diseases like fungal root rot can rarely kill the money plant. This happens mainly due to over watering.
- Now, the most important part of this episode. How to get big sized leaves in money plant? Money plants have aerial roots which are adventitious roots which are many designed for clinging and climbing on to a surface like trees, rocks and other structure we artificially provide like the moss sticks, coir sticks, trellis and so on. The concept is, these aerial roots also absorb some moisture and nutrients as well. So, taking this advantage, we have to follow these two simple tricks and hacks to get big sized leaves and lush bushy fast growing money plant. No doubt the size of the leaves also depends on the type of money plants and its genetic make up.
First Trick to Apply is: Use a Climber stick like coco coir stick, a moss stick or your own DIY gunny bag pole to anchor the aerial roots. The best one is a moss stick which is made of sphagnum moss. You can easily anchor the aerial roots into the moss and tie it up to hold in place. Make sure whenever you water your money plant, you water the moss stick as well. Liquid fertilizer like compost tea poured on to the moss stick also gives great results.
The Second Trick is: When it grows one round to the top of the pole, you take it downwards and then when it reaches the soil, you do soil layering or take a dip of one or two nodes into the same container and then take it upwards. This helps development of multiple root system that supports a short segment or a certain length of the money plants and helps in a very steady and faster growth.
Now Lastly some quick points to remember while growing money plant in water indoors.
If you start from a cutting, choose a healthy cutting of about 1 foot long and must have at least 3 to 4 nodes in it. Insert at least two nodes into a clean container, preferably a glass bottle. Avoid using plastic bottles. The narrow-necked bottles are better as it provides more humidity around the main stem. Use clean water to grow money plants and change water once every 10 days for best results. Keep it in a bright location in your home like near a window. And It does not require fertilizers when grown in water.
