Are Pothos Good Plants for Apartment Living?

Jul 27, 2023

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If you live in an apartment, you may be interested in filling suitable areas with beautiful, living plants. One of the most popular houseplants in the U.S. is pothos, beloved for its beautiful vines, resilient nature, and beginner-friendly growing requirements. If you’re wondering if pothos is good for apartment living, the answer is yes, as long as you provide this plant with its basic needs.

If you’re a beginner at growing houseplants, don't worry! We’ll cover everything you need to know to help pothos thrive, including where and how it natively grows, its indoor growing requirements, and the benefits of keeping houseplants in your apartment.

To understand how to care for pothos in your apartment, you’ll want to know where this plant originates and how it grows naturally. Pothos is a tropical vine native to the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific. This means this plant loves heat and humidity. You may think as a tropical plant it also loves basking in water, but pothos actually doesn't appreciate soggy roots. In its natural setting, this plant grows in the understory of the jungle canopy, receiving medium-to-bright indirect sunlight through the leaves of large tropical trees.

As it matures, this plant tends to climb up the trunks of nearby trees, developing aerial roots that uptake additional nutrients, oxygen, and water. This helps pothos reach its mature maximum length of 65 feet. Once pothos enters maturity, its variegated leaves grow dramatically and reach up to three feet long and wide. Additionally, mature pothos leaves become deeply split almost to the mid-rib.

As a houseplant, pothos remains in its juvenile, or vegetative, state and does not grow nearly as large. Below, we’ll cover the growing habits and characteristics of pothos as a houseplant.

©iStock.com/Jenny Sun

While pothos may grow to a massive size outdoors, they still can thrive as indoor plants. It just remains in its juvenile phase, which means it does not typically grow over about 10-15 feet, and its leaves don't tend to grow more than 3-6 inches long.

The vine's length and the foliage's size will differ depending on what cultivar of pothos you grow. For instance, the "Marble Queen" cultivar features white and green variegated leaves that grow to about 4-6 inches long. The "Neon" pothos cultivar features smaller leaves that grow about 3-4 inches long. In this juvenile state, pothos leaves are typically heart-shaped with smooth, entire margins.

When grown in appropriate conditions, pothos can live as a perennial houseplant for around 10 years. It stays in its juvenile phase due to the constraints of growing in a container and less exposure/intensity of exposure to the ideal growing conditions found in its tropical outdoor environment.

Known as "Devil's Ivy" for its resilient, hard-to-kill nature, pothos is an excellent choice for someone who wants a beautiful but low-maintenance houseplant. It's often advertised as unkillable, but this is more of an emphasis on its resilient nature. While it's not unkillable, providing this plant with the conditions it needs to thrive in apartment living is fully achievable. Below we’ll discuss the main growing requirements for this beautiful plant.

In nature, pothos thrives growing in the partially-shaded understory of the jungle canopy. It loves filtered sunlight and can suffer from burnt leaves when grown in direct sunlight. It needs access to at least eight hours a day of light to thrive. To replicate this, you can either place your pothos plant in or near a north or east-facing window or provide adequate artificial lighting.

While some plants do not thrive in artificial lighting, pothos can do quite well provided the lighting is correct. This is great news if you live in an apartment with only west or south-facing windows or if you don't have the room to place your plant near your windows. Generally, pothos will thrive with artificial lighting between 10,000-20,000 lux.

As a tropical plant, pothos loves humidity and needs to grow in an environment with the air humidity at 50-70%. Most air-conditioned apartments stay at 35-55% humidity. To test your air humidity, you can use a hygrometer, which in addition to displaying the air humidity, usually also displays the indoor temperature. If your air humidity is too low for pothos, you can purchase a small humidifier and place it a few feet away from the plant.

When growing pothos in an apartment, you’ll need to grow it in a container filled with either soil or a soil-less potting mixture. Pothos’ ideal growing medium is well-aerated, well-draining, slightly acidic (6.0-6.5 pH), fertile, and moist. While pothos can withstand soil that isn't packed full of nutrients or is a bit outside of its ideal pH range, it will suffer from a lack of oxygen and drainage in the soil. This plant does not tolerate soggy roots and is susceptible to root rot. As such, it's crucial to use a growing medium that encourages drainage (like a houseplant potting mix or sandy, loamy soil versus clay). You’ll also want to ensure you use a pot with a drainage hole.

Pothos is quite a quick grower (about 12 inches a month), so it's also best to fertilize this plant about once every six weeks during its spring and summer growing seasons. Since the nutrients in your potted growing medium will deplete as the roots uptake nutrients, it's important to replenish them with compost or a balanced nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium liquid fertilizer.

While pothos doesn't thrive with soggy roots, it does need consistent watering. However, overwatering is perhaps the main reason pothos houseplants struggle, so you’ll want to ensure you don't overdo it. A great rule of thumb for pothos is to check the top 2-3 inches of the soil. If you notice that the top couple of inches is entirely dry, it's time to thoroughly water the plant. Then, let the top of the soil completely dry out again before the next watering. On average, this comes out to watering your pothos plant about once a week. If you notice drooping, yellowing leaves and soggy soil, it's quite possible that you’re overwatering.

To keep pothos happy, you’ll want to maintain temperatures between 70-90 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, keeping your apartment at 90 degrees is no fun, but thankfully pothos will thrive just as well at the lower end of this range. If you tend to keep your apartment a bit cooler than the low end of pothos's preferred temperatures, you can insulate the pot to add extra warmth for the plant. Typically, people insulate pots with bubble wrap, burlap, or geotextile blankets, taking care not to cover the drainage hole(s).

Not only can pothos thrive in an apartment, but having pothos in your home can help you thrive too! Numerous studies have proven the health benefits of sharing your home with living plants. These benefits include:

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