Welcome to the wonderful world of plants. For those of you who don’t know, plants became a wildly popular hobby during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the people to get involved with said hobby is me, Sandi.

Epipremnum aureum, better known as a pothos, became one of the most common and easiest to care for houseplant. Their vine-y stems look stunning hanging down from a bookshelf or from a macrame hanger.

Pothos come in many different varieties such as neon pothos, golden pothos and marble queen pothos. There are about nine types of this plant and the only difference is the color of their leaves.

My personal favorite is either the neon pothos or N’Joy; it is a hard decision. N’Joy leaves are a beautiful mix of light green and white, with no sense of pattern. They kind of do their own thing but do get mixed up often with a pearls and jade pothos (P&J). The N’Joy has very structured color variations with no blending, but the P&J’s colors tend to blend.

The wonderful thing about all these varieties is that they have very similar care needs. These plants became popular due to the lack of care they need. They can handle most light conditions, from low light to direct light. Ideally, I recommend placing them in indirect light, meaning they sit in a north or east-facing window.

They are good at letting you know when they are thirsty. Their leaves go limp and, once watered, perk up in a few hours. In the summer, that could be anywhere between three days to a week. In the winter, you could go one to two weeks without watering.

Fertilizer is recommended during prime growing season. Depending on your conditions, the average pothos needs to be fertilized during late spring to the summer/beginning of fall. I fertilized my plants every two weeks with fish emulsions, aka fish poop. It stinks, but the nutrients in that fertilizer cause the plant to shoot out leaves left and right.

Most fertilizers also work well if they are targeted toward houseplants. If you create a greenhouse-like environment with grow lights and a humidifier, you could fertilize in the winter as well, but tone it down to once every month or two.

Basically, any pothos is a great beginner plant, except for my arch-nemesis, the silver pothos, but that is a topic for another day.