How often should I water a pothos?

Light

Pothos (Epipremnum aureum) copes with low light better than most foliage plants, but it grows slowly there and drinks little. Variegated forms such as Marble Queen lose their cream and gold markings in shade and need brighter, indirect light to keep them. Near a bright window in summer it can need water every 6–8 days.

Pot and soil

Trailing pothos often sit in small pots on high shelves, where they dry out faster than you expect and are easy to forget. Use an ordinary houseplant compost with a little perlite, a pot with drainage holes, and wait until the top third of the soil feels dry before watering. A hanging basket is easier to check by lifting than by touch.

Through the year

Starting figures in medium light are every 7–10 days in spring and summer, 9–13 in autumn and 11–16 in winter. A pothos kept in a dim hallway in winter may go 15–21 days. Long vines carry a lot of leaf, so a plant that has trailed a couple of metres uses more water than its pot size suggests.

Too much or too little

Thirst is easy to spot: the leaves go limp and the vines hang flat, then perk up within hours of a good soak. Let that happen too often, though, and older leaves turn yellow and drop, leaving bare stretches of vine. Overwatering looks different: yellow leaves with soft brown patches, blackening stems at the soil line and a pot that never seems to dry. Pothos is toxic to cats and dogs if chewed.