How to Propagate Your Pothos (Devil's Ivy) Houseplant

The Pothos (also known as Devil's Ivy) is an extremely popular and easy-to-grow houseplant. If your Pothos has matured to the point where it's getting leggy and shows little brown air roots along its lengths, then it's the perfect time for you to propagate a few cuttings and easily increase the size of your houseplant family without spending a dime.

1. First determine which of your Devil's Ivy's "legs" you are going to use for propagation. If your goal is a lush, leafy Pothos in a 6 inch diameter pot, you'll need 4-6 cuttings. The gorgeous Devil's Ivy plants you see in restaurants and offices are actually several Pothos planted in the same large pot. One lone cutting, left to its own devices, won't bring up new sprouts. Rather, it will remain one lone plant, growing leggier and leggier, and that's definitely not the look you're after here.

Finding lengths on your plant that show at least one or two air roots. The air roots on a Pothos are the little stubby brown growths which appear along its leggiest portions.

2. Clip lengths from your plant which includes at least a couple of air roots. Make sure the length you clip is long enough to place in a glass of water. This usually means you'll end up clipping a 6"-8" sections off of your original Pothos plant. Remove any leaves in the immediate area of the air roots; you'll be submerging the air roots in the water and any immediately surrounding leaves will only get mushy and rot, poisoning the growing environment for the air roots.

3. Place your cuttings in a glass of room temperature water, making sure all the air roots you want to turn into "real" roots are properly submerged.

4. Check the water level on your Pothos cuttings every couple of days. The water in the glass will evaporate and your goal is to make sure the air roots are adequately submerged in water at all times. Once a week or so replace the water completely with fresh water.

In about two weeks you'll see the air roots on your cuttings start to grow and turn a mild, whitish color. At this point you could actually keep the Pothos growing in water almost indefinitely, replacing the water in full about once a week and perhaps enhancing it with a bit of liquid plant food.

You can plant your cuttings in a pot once the roots have reached a nice hearty size of about 4-5 inches in length. Pothos, once they've established themselves in a pot, grow quite full and leafy, so be sure to pick a decent size pot that will be able to house your plant for a nice, long time.

5. Plant your cuttings about 3 inches apart and be sure to place a cutting in the center of the pot as well to avoid a "bald spot" in the pot's middle once your cuttings take root and grow. Make sure your soil is adequately moist but avoid over-watering. Your cuttings have already gone through a lot and they need to get used to their new home. You don't want to place added stress on them by dousing them too enthusiastically with your liquid love.

Keep your new plant in a comfortable spot, neither too hot nor too cold. It will do its best if it can get bright, indirect sunlight. Relax and enjoy!