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When to Repot Pothos – Top 5 Reasons!

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If you are an ardent fan of houseplants, you must have considered keeping pothos in your home at one point or another. They are great for working people who need to add an extra touch of color and freshness to their homes without investing too much time looking after the plants. Pothos don’t need much maintenance and can grow well with few requirements.

There is; however one thing that you need to take care of with pothos in the house – repotting. Pothos grow very rapidly, and you may have to repot them after every few years, but this could leave you confused about when to repot pothos.

When to Repot Pothos 3
via Flickr

If you are stumped about when to repot pothos and the right time to change their home, keep reading to know everything about it.

When to Repot Pothos?

Several cues let you know that it is time to repot pothos into another pot. It doesn’t have to be a bigger pot every time. If the plant is still growing, you may need to repot the plant in a bigger pot, but for other reasons than growth, you just need a different pot and not a bigger one. So, exactly when to repot pothos?

Let’s find out.

The Right Time to Repot Pothos

To answer your question – when to repot pothos – in terms of time, the months of spring and summer season are the ideal time for repotting your plants. This is because pothos starts to grow rapidly in warm weather. So, you will notice rapid growth, extended roots, and towering stems in April to July and August.

This plant’s rapid growth will leave the roots poking out from the draining holes and the plant outgrowing its pot. To keep the plant alive and grow even further, you need to repot it to a more spacious one, providing it more area to grow and expand. Be on the lookout for repotting the plant in the spring and summer months.

Reasons to Repot the Pothos

Other than the time of the year, you may also need to repot the pothos due to internal reasons. These include excessive growth, diseases, and purely aesthetic purposes.

Repotting the pothos due to growth

Pothos are plants that grow pretty quickly. They can grow up to 12 to 18 inches in just one month. You may think that you could control the excessive growth by cutting the above ground portion often or taming them somehow, but this is seldom possible. The plant is also growing under the soil and not just above the soil.

The roots of the pothos may not grow at an equivalent speed as the rest of the above-ground portion, but it is growing at a considerable speed. The point to consider here is that roots do not have unlimited space like the upper portion of the plant to grow.

It is growing in a confined space and will soon fill it all up. In ideal conditions, the roots of the pothos should be at least 2 inches above the base and edges of the pot, so there is space between them. If this space is available, your plant roots will extend through the draining holes and block them, creating a poor drainage system.

Pothos need a well-drained system inside the soil. If the roots grow too much and block the drainage system, the soil in the pot will become hard and unable to provide the same functionality. In this case, your plant could even die if not looked after immediately.

Make sure to repot the plant every one or two years. Keep checking the soil to see if it has become hard, which means you need repotting.

Other than roots, leaves can also become too big and start taking up too much space in the room they are kept in. In this case, you may consider repotting them to balance the large leaves or confine the huge plant’s entirety in a pot.

When to Repot Pothos 4
via Flickr

Repotting To Preserve the Health

If you have kept the pothos in one pot for too long, the roots will outgrow the space and block the drainage system. This could lead to the soil trapping moisture and becoming overwatered. Overwatering of the roots and plants causes several diseases.

The main one is root rot. The roots will die, and so will the plant. You may be able to save the plant if you don’t wait too long before repotting it. If the roots have become too rotten because you kept the plant in the same pot for too long, you may have to let the plant go even after the roots grew too big.

Besides root rot, some pests may attack the plant when it is not properly drained. These pests can destroy the plant. You need to get rid of the pest before repotting. Wash the plant with a pesticide or an insecticide, spray alcohol and neem oil, and take professional help to make the insects and pests disappear. Only then should you repot the plant.

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If there has been an extensive attack on your plant and you see that it is dying, there may still be one way to save it. You could cut a portion of the plant which is still healthy and repot it into a new pot. In a few weeks, you will have new pothos.

Repotting for Aesthetics

Your plants could be healthy and safe, but there is still one more reason to go for repotting – decorative purposes. It could be that you found a cute pot on your next trip or are changing some things to make the decoration of the house more seamless so you could get pots that match your interior and repot the pothos into them.

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Conclusion

This was all you need to need to know about when to repot pothos. However, Repotting also provides a way to mix the fertilizer and compost it thoroughly. Adding fertilizing in the same pot over time may not do the trick, but mixing it with new soil that you are about to put your plant into can help the pothos flourish and become lusher green.

I hope this article answers your question of when to repot pothos. If you have ever repotted pothos, share your tips and experiences with us in the comments section below.