It’s called Devils ivy because it’s impossible to kill, like James Bond, and stays green even when kept in the dark. But hey, it’s not going to grow very quickly in the dark so put it in filtered light by the window. It also grows under fluorescent office light.
Best traits: Remains green even in the dark. Hard to kill. Makes your retail storefront look nice so you sell more products.
Looks best: Trailing down a cabinet or hanging from a basket, or in the lobby of a millionaires mansion.
Epipremnum Aureum is the scientific for Devils Ivy, which has a range of other common names such as Marble Queen, Golden Pothos or Neon Pothos (Pictured above).
Care instructions
It requires very little maintenance and can tolerate erratic watering, luckily you have a PlantMaid so waterings aren’t erratic.
Light: Filtered light near a window
Water: Water when the top 2cm of soil is wet, which is around once every 5 days in summer. Once every 10 days in winter
Temperature: 18-27 C
Fertiliser: not required generally, but could do once or twice during summer
I always like plants that provide a purpose and this is one of those great air detox plants, as voted for by NASA (not sure if they wanted plants in space yet). It will remove formaldehyde, xylene, and benzene from the air.
Watering: This is a drought tolerant plant so it can handle random watering, but it does not like soggy soil. In fact, soggy soil is how fungus forms and the dreaded root rot that you hear botanists complaining about. The short answer is, allow the soil to dry between waterings.
Care tips:
- If you notice bright white spots on the leave – you have placed it in too brighter sunlight, the leave are getting burnt. If the plant bursts into flames you have placed it in way too hot sunlight (just kidding it doesn’t burst into flames unless doused in petrol and set alight)
- Leaves are turning yellow and falling off – Most likely overwatering (nobody likes to clean up yellow leaves on the ground). Devil’s ivy is drought tolerant, reduce watering immediately.
- Leaves are turning brown – Room may be too dry. Devils ivy like humidity more than the Swedish like a steam bath. Mist the plant like you are spritzing your hair. Even better move it to the bathroom window.
Some other cool things:
Devils ivy will grow directly in water, you can cut off a section of a vine and place it directly in a glass of water and wait for the roots to form (do this during the growing season, i.e. spring/summer). You can even have devil’s ivy growing out of your aquarium, the roots will dangle in the water and are beneficial to the fish.
The plant is toxic for cats and dogs and will cause vomiting – Ok this isn’t a cool thing. Keep it away from your cats and dogs.
Propagation
Devils ivy is easy to propagate, just cut a stem below a stem node. Put the stems in water, in about 3-4 weeks you should see roots appear. Once the roots are about 5-10cm long you can transfer the stems to a pot with soil.
The ‘nodes’ on the stem are where the roots will grow from. In the picture below I tested 2 different cutting, one in the middle of the stem and one at the root node. As you can see in both cases roots germinated from the root note. You can cut at any point, but it probably makes sense to cut just below the root node so that the roots grow right at the bottom.
There are many varieties of Devil’s ivy, some have small leaves and some have massive leaves. Here are two pictures I took of different leaves…still indoor plants!
Happy Growing.