Hi! I’m very new to house plants besides this Pothos. I’ve recently gotten more house plants and have begun more research leading me to this failure.
I’ve had this Golden Pothos for a little over a year now, and she was BEAUTIFUL (see second pic), I love her and she is my first baby. Doing more research I saw that the soil she was in was not good for her, she started browning a little and the roots begun coming out of the drainage hole so I wanted to clear the soil and repot her. It was TRAUMATIC and took very long. The direct sun also got to it during the process. Roots were lost but very few leaves. I struggled to get each separate planted propagation back in the pot with the soil cleared off of it all. She is very sad. Will it be okay? I did in fact cry during the whole process. I chopped and propped just in case.
by sacrificialsun
7 Comments
Mine looked really sad after repotting too, it took a few weeks to bounce back. When did you repot? If it was not too long ago, she may just be in shock and needs time to adjust. As long as she’s green, there’s a fighting chance!
Sounds like you guys had rough time together.
In the future, you don’t have to separate the roots to repot. I generally loosen a few of the larger ones and in it goes. If you are dead set on removing the soil, soak the roots and dirt in water. Give it a few gentle squeezes to work the water inside and it will begin to pick apart quite easily. Change the water as necessary.
It can take a day or two after repotting to bounce back. Did you water after? Always water thoroughly letting the excess drain off. Pothos are very forgiving just give it a few days.
The only time you need to do this is moving to semi hydro. When changing from MG, or the like, just remove what’s loose and put in better soil. When you water more of the old stuff will speed into the new.
That’s what I do with new plants. Otherwise they get very stressed.
If you have some root boosting fertilizer like GH rapid rooter or kelp fertilizer that should help heal the roots. It wouldn’t hurt to place a bag over it if possible. For large plants I’ll use sticks and plastic wrap to hold in the humidity. That’s always made a huge difference when I stress a plant this bad. They loose a lot of moisture through the leaves and right now it can’t pull moisture well. It won’t die if you don’t do the above but doing it will save more leaves than not.
Hope it bounces back soon. Most of use have been here! Can’t tell you how many times I’ve stressed out my plants.
Repotting will likely cause shock to any plant. Just give her time and yeah not direct sunlight, most pothos dont like it. Water when the top inch of soil gets dry. I always make sure to water thoroughly. Basically flood it until the water is coming out of the drain holes to make sure all the soil is wet. Also make sure you go around the entire pot. Dry spots in the soil can be bad for the roots. At the same time wet soil for too long is also bad, so make sure there are plenty of drainage holes. When you water it, you should see bubbles coming up from under the dirt, this is good. If there aren’t any bubbles surfacing then you did not wait long enough and you risk root rot.
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Luckily pothos are some of the most forgiving plants. She will adjust and be just fine! I was going to say the crispy leaves are either sunburn or under watering.. If you think that’s traumatic wait until the plant addiction kicks in, and you grow and love your first Alocasia from a corm, to have her grow big and huge. Big enough she needs to be repotted, so you GENTLY do so, not disturbing her roots too much during the process. Then to have her thank you by dropping EVERY SINGLE BIG BEAUTIFUL LEAVE ONE BY ONE AND DAY BY DAY!! 😢 Don’t ask me how I know😭😭 OH and to top matters she didn’t give me ONE corm so that I have a backup. She’s really big and should have given me several. Never had that before…
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This is her BEFORE I killed her 😭
Hopefully the photo loads because it’s not showing on my end. Just a star where it should be.
https://preview.redd.it/f9h6k7fz9gxe1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e544e725e3c2a2fcfddf9665f0b5edf3c4289d32