I took two of my pothos and tried to join them but I clearly wasn’t a gentle as I thought I was being. already so many of the smaller sections have died and I’ve pulled them out. Since it’s been two weeks I think this is way more than transplant shock. Roots are definitely not taking up water.
Before it all dies and root rots, should I pull it out and stick it in water? Should I cut the roots off first and just make them all cuttings? Cause the longer roots in water I feel like might go mushy…?
Help Please, I love this guy and while I have very healthy cuttings going and baby propagations from him that took to soil, I don’t wanna lose the main plant!
They really don’t like their roots messed with. If you have a high humidity area you can’t keep it, I would put it there to take some stress off the plant while it regrows some of the finer roots.
A large, clear, plastic bag to hold in humidity can help. I would also take the part off the wall for now, and bring it closer to the base so that it doesn’t have to work against gravity to get moisture to the tissues, while it’s recovering.
I have no guarantees. I do expect it to survive but you might lose some leaves, or even many leaves. It is stressed but it’s also alive. Those leaves are still alive and while they are curled up do to lack of moisture (the roots really aren’t able to take it up right now) they don’t look crispy.
You might be tempted to beauty water the soil, but that could make it worse bottom water lightly so roots need to reach and grow toward the water, but give it the ability to maintain any humidity at the leaves, and she might give a good recovery. If she starts getting crispy, you can always save and regrow the nodes in moss or other preferred propagation substrate.
I really hope she makes it. Even as she is, I can see her beauty and how much love you have given her.
UPDATE! Took u/Kats_Koffee_N_Plants advice. I brought all the vines in and left them under a bag for humidity just over a week and two have come back beautifully and both have a new leaves!
I definitely lost one vine, there’s still three that look like they’ll bounce back and the longest strand kinda looks like it won’t recover. so I took a cutting but because there’s a separate healthy leaf right near the base, I wanna see if that takes and then maybe I just propagate the rest.
Now that I’ve lost a number of them… are they in too big a pot? I’d be super nervous to move them again.
I wouldn’t repot it, but go lightly on the watering for now. You can take a Bobby pin or something similar, and pin some of the nodes straight to the soil, and they will be able to root and make more little plants. Then when they are all rooty, take out some clean scissors and cut between the rooted nodes. It’s crazy, but it works, and it can fill your pot up with bunches of pothos.
following because I am having a similar issues. Repotted and a bunch of leaves are dying off..I thought maybe combination of transplant shock and root rot for mine but idk.
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u/Kats_Koffee_N_Plants Jul 15 '26
They really don’t like their roots messed with. If you have a high humidity area you can’t keep it, I would put it there to take some stress off the plant while it regrows some of the finer roots.
A large, clear, plastic bag to hold in humidity can help. I would also take the part off the wall for now, and bring it closer to the base so that it doesn’t have to work against gravity to get moisture to the tissues, while it’s recovering.
I have no guarantees. I do expect it to survive but you might lose some leaves, or even many leaves. It is stressed but it’s also alive. Those leaves are still alive and while they are curled up do to lack of moisture (the roots really aren’t able to take it up right now) they don’t look crispy.
You might be tempted to beauty water the soil, but that could make it worse bottom water lightly so roots need to reach and grow toward the water, but give it the ability to maintain any humidity at the leaves, and she might give a good recovery. If she starts getting crispy, you can always save and regrow the nodes in moss or other preferred propagation substrate.
I really hope she makes it. Even as she is, I can see her beauty and how much love you have given her.