Nobody searches this because their Pothos is dead. They search it because it’s alive, fine, and doing absolutely nothing about it. One new leaf since March. Still green, still upright, still refusing to commit.
Here’s the good news: Pothos are fast growers. Properly fast, in the right conditions. Here’s the annoying news: “the right conditions” is mostly one single thing, it costs nothing, and it is not the thing the internet wants to sell you.
Not that I’m cynical or anything.
The short answer is light
It’s light. It’s always light.
You can close this tab now if you want. Move your Pothos nearer a window, and if there isn’t a window that works, buy a grow light. Everything else on this page is optimisation on top of a plant that’s already getting enough light to bother growing in the first place.
Still here? Good, because the rest does help, and it helps a lot once the light is sorted. Here’s every lever that actually speeds a Pothos up, roughly in order of how much difference each one makes.
1. Light, and quite a lot more of it than you think
Growth costs energy.
Energy comes from photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis comes from light.
A Pothos in a dim corner isn’t being lazy, it’s being sensible: it hasn’t got the budget for a new leaf, so it isn’t buying one.
Pothos are sold as low light plants because they will survive in low light for years.
Surviving and growing are two completely different activities.
A Pothos in a dark hallway can tick along almost indefinitely while producing roughly nothing. It isn’t broken. It’s just skint.
The test: does it cast a crisp shadow?
Hold your hand between your Pothos and the light source in the middle of the day. If the shadow has clean, defined edges, you’ve got enough light for decent growth. If it’s a vague grey smudge, or there’s no shadow at all, that’s your answer and you’ve spent nothing to find it.
Don’t buy a light meter. The accurate ones are eye-wateringly expensive and the affordable ones will confidently tell you nonsense. The shadow test is free and it’s fine for a Pothos.
What “more light” looks like in practice:
- Directly in an east or north-facing window
- Within a few feet of a south or west-facing window
- Under a grow light, if none of the above exist in your house
If you are interested in grow lights read this. Spoiler: I’ve used loads over the years but I found one that works totally fine so now I just recommend that one. It’s cheap and works (I could do with it being more aesthetic, as the kids say, but pretty grow lights are currently not a thing)!
Pothos can handle a fair bit of direct sun if you acclimate them to it slowly, so don’t panic about scorching. Panic about the dark corner.
How Much Light Does A Pothos Need? (Stop Putting It In The Dark)
2. Give it something solid to climb
This is the second biggest lever.
Pothos are climbers. In the wild they go up trees, and they’ve got a whole system for it: aerial roots that grab onto bark and haul the vine upwards. When a Pothos is growing vertically, something in its wiring registers that it’s heading towards better light, and it responds by producing bigger leaves, spaced closer together.
Can it tell tell the difference between my artex ceiling and the literal sun? It cannot.
Growing along a shelf or down off a bookcase sends the opposite signal. The plant is being told it hasn’t found the tree yet, so it stretches, keeps its leaves small, and carries on looking.
That’s why the same plant, in the same light, will grow noticeably faster and bigger going up than it will going sideways.
What to climb up, in order of results:
A proper moss pole is the best of the lot, because the aerial roots grow into the moss and forms a secondary root systems partway up the plant. More roots means more water and nutrients, which means faster growth. The catch is that you have to keep the moss damp, which I cannot be arsed to do.
Kratiste poles are the lazy option and I mean that as a compliment. The aerial roots attach on their own without you moistening anything. You don’t get the secondary root system, so growth isn’t as dramatic, but they need zero maintenance and they’re a big step up from coir.
Coir poles work fine as physical support, but Pothos aerial roots will not attach to them unless your humidity is unusually high. You’ll be clipping the vines on yourself, forever.
How To Train Pothos To Climb A Moss Pole
Pothos Aerial Roots: What Are They and What Do You Do With Them?
If you want a trailing Pothos, that’s completely valid. They look great and they’re less faff. Just know you’re working against the plant’s instincts, so you’ll need to give it even more light to keep the leaves a decent size.
3. Warmth
Pothos like roughly the temperatures you like. Cold won’t kill them, but it will put them in standby mode, and a plant in standby doesn’t grow no matter how good the light is.
I found this out by accident. I had the radiator in my bedroom replaced, the room got significantly warmer, and I was shocked at the difference. Plants that had basically shut down started growing again. I hadn’t changed the light, the watering, or anything else. Just the temperature.
If your Pothos sits somewhere that’s cold in winter, that alone can explain months of nothing.
What Temperature Do Pothos Need?
4. Consistency (and the clear plastic box trick)
Pothos hate being messed about. Constantly moving a plant around to chase light, or letting the temperature swing wildly, costs it energy in adjustment that it could be spending on leaves.
For small plants, there’s a shortcut I use regularly: put the whole thing in a clear plastic box.
It’s not sophisticated. A clear storage box with the lid on, somewhere bright, and you’ve made yourself a free growth chamber. The humidity stays high and stable, the temperature stays even, and small Pothos absolutely rocket in them. It’s the single best thing you can do for a struggling cutting or a tiny plant that isn’t establishing.
Two rules: it has to be somewhere bright, because a box in a dark room is just a plastic box, and crack the lid occasionally so you’re not growing a mould farm (or put a few holes in it if you’re feeling fancy).
This obviously stops being practical once the plant outgrows the box, but that early boost can really help.
5. A chunkier mix, watered more often
Roots need oxygen as much as they need water. A dense, peaty mix that stays soggy suffocates them, and roots that are busy not drowning aren’t busy growing.
A chunkier mix with plenty of bark and perlite holds air, drains fast, and lets you water more frequently without the plant sitting wet. More frequent watering means more frequent delivery of everything the plant needs, which means faster growth. The chunky mix is what makes the frequent watering safe.
This is a genuine upgrade, but it’s number five on the list for a reason. A perfect mix in a dark room will do nothing for you.
6. Fertiliser, and only now
Fertiliser is a multivitamin, not a meal. It’s brilliant at filling in gaps, and useless as a replacement for a healthy diet.
If your Pothos is in strong light, is warm, is pest free, has good roots, and is still growing slowly, then yes, feed it. Pick a general houseplant fertiliser and add it every other watering. Don’t overthink the brand.
If any of those other boxes are unticked, fertiliser will not fix it. You’ll just have a slow plant with expensive soil.
What actually wastes your money
The meta version of this article would stop there. Here’s the other half, because a lot of “make your plant grow faster” advice is people selling you things.
| Thing | Does it speed up growth? |
|---|---|
| More light (free, or a grow light) | Yes. More than everything below combined |
| Letting it climb | Yes, noticeably |
| Warmth | Yes, especially in winter |
| Clear box for small plants | Yes, dramatically, while they fit |
| Chunky mix and frequent watering | Yes, moderately |
| Fertiliser | Yes, but only once everything above is sorted |
| Misting | No |
| A light meter | No, and it’ll probably lie to you |
| A bigger pot | No. Pothos are fine tight, and extra wet soil is a liability |
| Fertiliser that promises shorter internodes | No. That’s a light problem being sold as a nutrition problem |
| Self-watering pots | No. Convenient, not accelerating |
When and How To Repot Your Pothos
Self Watering Pots For Pothos: Are They Worth It?
So how fast is fast?
I’m not going to give you a number, and I want to explain why rather than just dodging it.
Growth rate depends so heavily on light that any figure I gave you would be wrong for most people reading it.
A Pothos in an east-facing window and the same Pothos four metres into the room are functionally different plants. “A leaf a fortnight” would be depressing for one and impossible for the other, and you’d have no way of knowing which one you had.
So do this instead. Take a photo of your Pothos today. Change one thing, ideally the light. Take another photo in six weeks.
You’re not comparing your plant to mine, or to some average that doesn’t exist. You’re comparing your plant to itself, which is the only comparison that means anything.
If nothing has changed in six weeks in good light, warmth and decent roots, then something else is going on, and the place to start is pests. Nobody ever thinks they have pests.
Common Pothos Pests: How To Identify and Destroy Them
Frequently asked questions
Does a bigger pot make a Pothos grow faster?
No. Pothos tolerate being tight in their pots and a pot that’s too big just holds wet soil the roots can’t reach, which raises your rot risk. Repot when the plant genuinely needs it, not as a growth strategy.
Will pruning make my Pothos grow faster?
Sort of, and it’s more interesting than it sounds. Cutting a Pothos back hard leaves a big root system supporting far fewer leaves, and the plant responds to that imbalance with a burst of growth. It’s not faster growth overall so much as concentrated growth. Sometimes you also get a second growth point out of it, which is a nice bonus rather than something you can count on.
Do Pothos grow faster in water or soil?
Cuttings often root faster in water, but long term a Pothos in soil or a chunky mix will outgrow one left in a jar, because it’s got more to work with. Water growing is low effort and looks great, it just isn’t the fast option.
Does high humidity make Pothos grow faster?
It helps, particularly with aerial root development, but it’s well down the list. Raising humidity while your plant sits in a dark corner will change nothing. Sort the light first, and if you want the humidity benefit cheaply, use the clear box trick on small plants rather than buying a humidifier.
Do Pothos grow faster in summer?
Usually, yes, and that’s mostly about light levels and warmth rather than the date. If you’ve got a grow light and a warm room, the difference between summer and winter gets a lot smaller.
My Pothos has long gaps between the leaves. Is that fast growth?
No, that’s stretching, and it means the plant is hunting for light. Fast growth is closely spaced leaves. Long gaps are the plant spending its energy on stem instead of leaves.