Today I learned...

[which_chick]

The houseplant pothos, which mostly looks like a small vine with heart-shaped leaves, does not begin to progress towards its final form unless you give it something to climb. Here's an article about pothos, if you're not sure what plant this is. Small, vine thing with heart shaped leaves. It can have yellow or white on the leaves or just be plain green.

Nice, right?

So... that's just what it looks like as a baby. That there is a baby pothos. In real life, in the wild, in an appropriate environment, they get a lot bigger than that. A lot bigger.

Now, you probably can't make that happen with two foot leaves and stuff if you're not in a tropical island environment but you can certainly do better than small vine thing with heart shaped leaves in your house if you make a bit of an effort.

This internet dude says you can use a moss pole to grow a bigger, fancier pothos in your home. Looks like a nice weekend project for me, since I have a green pothos I got for free -- a tenant left a nearly-dead one behind after she moved out. And I have a plant room. And I have sphagnum moss and I'm handy-ish with tools.

Watch this space for pictures.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

I've got a few pothos, though they're all in the pretty sad form. Getting one closer to the plant light made the leaves suddenly start coming in about twice as large, though!

I've seen a few really impressive ones at the zoo. Not leaves quite that enormous, but they have a bunch in the tropical building, where most of the fish and reptiles and amphibians are. Indoor, but bright and humid and warm, so the pothos there love it.

I feel like I should invent in some moss poles for those and the tiny sad monstera that was rescued from a clearance shelf at the grocery store.

[which_chick]

Ooh, a monstera would also probably be happy about a moss pole. I built mine out of green-vinyl-coated hardware cloth (Tractor Supply) and sphagnum moss (handfuls of it from my swamp, which is free-ish if you don't mind picking out the leaves and pine needles) and some zipties. You'll need a wirecutter and a tape measure. I did 2' wide, 5' long hardware cloth, cut it into four pieces (cut in half once each direction for 1' x 2.5' pieces), bent into a tube, ziptied together, stuffed full of sphag (not tight, but not loose either).

I've put the moss pole thing next to the pothos and attached three of the vines to the bottom of the moss with wire, so we'll see how that goes.

[which_chick]

Here's a picture, because I actually did this thing, like for real. Go me. (Many other weekend activities remain unaccomplished, garden still needs to be cleaned up, grass is not cut, laundry was given a lick and a promise, there's a live chipmunk somewhere in my house, and I have unwashed dishes in my sink. Also, there is leftover hardware cloth and zip ties on the living room floor and I have a bucket and a half of leftover sphagnum moss driving the humidity in the plant room over 70%.) But look, moss pole experiment is under way!



Also here's a bonus pic of my flowering dendrobium hybrid:

[mistressofmuses]

The moss pole looks fantastic! Looks perfect for them to climb and use those little aerial roots! The hardware cloth is a great idea... I might have to look into something similar as a good DIY version.

And ooh, the orchid is lovely.

I think I should definitely get one for my tiny monstera, which is doing far better than I ever expected, but could probably be made happier. The pothos would probably be way happier with a pole, too. And maybe if I could remember to run my tiny humidifier every once in a while...

Sorry you've got such a pile of other stuff to deal with, though! Good luck with the chipmunk, haha.

[which_chick]

Yeah, not sure how the chipmunk issue is going. I didn't see him yesterday but also I left the door open while I was mowing the grass in case he wanted to escape. I'll have to investigate the issue further at some point. On the plus side, my grass is now cut and the (mostly-dead) tomato vines have been wrangled out of the garden area. Progress!

[mistressofmuses]

I hope the chipmunk did indeed escort himself out.

Congrats on getting the grass cut and the garden more wrangled!