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Using rainwater has always solved blackened tips for me. Forgot the class, but my professor was talking about how plants will move the chemicals in tap water to the leaf tips to get rid of them.
If collecting rainwater isn't practical, fill a wide-mouthed pitcher with tap water and let it sit for a day, preferably in the sun.
This could very well be - I think it wouldn't be the first time plants respond poorly to the water here. And it seems to always be starting at the tips very specifically. I'll see if I can find some way to collect rainwater - thank you! Will probably do all my plants good to be honest.
I have a huge plastic tub stashed in the woods behind my house, bring it out twice a year or so before a storm. For storage I have 10 or 12 1.5L vodka bottles a friend gave me.
It would be faster to collect the runoff from the roof, but no idea what chemicals or minerals leach into that. My little pond under the eaves gets refilled with that water and it's super healthy. Frogs everywhere!
Is it about chlorine? Cause my tap water doenst have any added chemicals, just a bunch of limescale
Hard water can build up in the soil. There's some plants I've had in the same pot for a long time where the top of the soil starts to look a little "crusty", even though i don't have particularly hard water. If you have a lot of lime scale, your water pH is likely high, which can make it hard for plants to pickup nutrients.
AFAIK limescale shouldn't affect most plants, but some are sensible (not your pothos).
Ironically I made my potos suffer quite a bit until recently
You sure nothing is added to your tap water? I guess I assumed all municipal water supplies were treated, in any given country.
I looked it up, their internal test report says Cl^- 58mg/l. Looking around online this seems super high, but maybe thats because of the difference between chlorine and chloride?
Anyway apparently they pump it from groundwater wells and just run it through carbon filters
That sounds great! For humans anyway, maybe not so much for plants. Thanks for looking and learning me something!
They might have well water.
My checklist for pothos tends to be:
Unlikely cases are improper soil or over fertilized or under fertilized soil (Pothos tend to express it differently in my experience but your mileage might vary). Additional unlikely cases are temperature and overgrown its pot (based on your feedback to Zweibel, I understand that's not the case).
Watering is tricky because if I see the plant reacting negatively to a different problem, I tend to over-water it and now the plant has two problems, which I tend to keep over-watering it hoping that will solve it all. Run the checklist and also try switching its place.
Thanks - that's a super useful check list. I think I'll get some porous stones and re-pot. I'll also move it away from the window to a place with more indirect light, and try to collect some rainwater. :)
I made a crude diagram, but probably you can try easier options before doing any of these things:
Maybe someone can correct any of these points and I can improve my caring.
That's amazing - thank you!!
What is it.
What's your watering schedule.
What's your humidity.
Generally speaking though it's underwatering, if you went from high humidity to low that could explain it.
My watering schedule is a bit messy, I usually just feel the soil and water when it feels dry. I thought first it was underwatering, but then after cutting off leaves that all came out badly (and only growing worse) to let it re-grow we were being more careful to water it, and still they come out the same way.
The plant has been in this climate for over a year now, but this has been a problem only the last few months or so. So it seems to me to be something more going on than just the watering schedule - in the past under-watering would lead to old leaves dropping, but new leaves would mostly be fine.
When did you last repot it? It might've just gotten root rot, I'd check that
A few months ago - during winter, so it's possible that I over-watered it as it's a very different (colder and darker) climate from what I've kept the plant in before.
If it's root rot, I should just repot it and clip off any bad looking roots in the process?
The fact that they came back looking bad again makes me wonder if this might be the case. It didn't use to respond to under-watering like this in the past (older leaves would die), and I don't think I have been over-watering it lately either.
If it's root rot, I should just repot it and clip off any bad looking roots in the process?
Jup :)
You can also try to get a better draining soil mix like an 'aroid mix'
And of course your pot needs to have holes in the bottom
Disclaimer: I'm not an expert.
Pothos is usually fairly hardy. It's probably acclimating to it's new environment. Be very careful of over watering. Stick your finger deep into the soil and don't water if it's clearly moist. If it's totally dry, take it to the shower, get it totally wet but let all the excess water drain. If you haven't repotted it in two years, you may want to do that and check for root rot while you're at it.
It's been repotted fairly recently, and the problems seem to have started shortly after really. Maybe it needs to get used to the new pot, but all the new leaves start looking bad after a little while at this point, and the part of the plant that's already grown seems to be gradually getting marks and looking worse.
Thanks for the advice on watering - I'll be more hesitant going forwards! Could very well be that I have been over-watering it, in the past I got the impression that I could do nothing wrong with it.
I'm actually having a similar problem. I've had my pothos for maybe 6 years now, and I reported them for the first time in a long while a month ago... they're not very happy now, but I'm hoping they're just adjusting.
I have no advice but I hope yours recover!
