More Pothos Options

l4nsky

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Hola,

I'm a big fan of bioactive and planted enclosures, both from an aesthetics point of view for myself and humidity regulation, potential air quality improvement, and potential quality of life for the animals (hard to really measure the last two). Like a lot of people who do bioactive setups for tarantulas (specifically T's, dart frog keepers are on a whole other level entirely), I believe pothos is the gold standard for its availability, extreme hardiness and ability to thrive in a variety of conditions, and it's overall tropical appearance. My first foray into bioactive enclosures started in 2019. At the time, my local exotic pet store was selling pesticide free golden pothos cuttings by the leaf for terrariums and I picked up 5 leaves. It's hard to comprehend how prolific pothos can be unless you've experienced it yourself. The following picture is a good example though. 20210512_104227.jpg
All of these plants and their growth are from those original 5 leaves I purchased and the periodic maintenance trimmings I've done in the one enclosure. I have more in my greenhouse and I have substantially harvested quite a lot of vines to make leaf litter as well.

Now, I'm in a position where a lot of my tarantulas are on the cusp of being placed into their final adult enclosures, and I plan on going bioactive for those that I can. I love the variegation in golden pothos, but having a rack of enclosures with just golden pothos would be quite monotonous for me. Having said that, pothos is still the gold standard and I don't really want to expand into other terrarium plants that might require a bit more care or light just yet (maybe in the future). As luck would have it, I was picking up substrate at the same exotic pet store I frequent and discovered that they had different pothos varieties in stock. I picked up these two specimens.
20210512_102936.jpg
They weren't identified at the store, but I believe they are the 'Neon' (middle of the picture) and 'Silver/Satin' (far right of the picture) varieties (the plant on the far left is yet another golden pothos cutting from my original 5 leaves). I plan on growing these two plants out and using them as mother plants to take clones from for my enclosures. I think I'll be able to make quite an eye catching assortment of bioactive enclosures with these used in various combinations and still be able to create low maintenance bioactive enclosures thanks to pothos' hardiness. I'm already pursuing other pothos cultivars to add to my collection as well. Looks like I'm really going to be exercising my green thumb this summer lol.

Thanks,
--Matt
 

Jumbie Spider

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Pothos are great, and is a staple in the aquarium hobby as well (they are great at removing nitrates). I have several all growing out of aquariums, and stretching all across the rooms. I was able to trail some from an aquarium over some of my T enclosures and rack and made the entire place feel jungle-ish to a small degree. In the enclosures themselves, I have some resurrection fern, and various air plants to give it a nice green touch.
 

l4nsky

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Well, that didn't take long. After this post, I started looking into the different varieties available and found a deal I couldn't pass up. I have cuttings for the following cultivars being shipped my way soon:
  • Jade Pothos
  • Hawaiian Pothos
  • Neon Pothos
  • Marble Queen Pothos
  • Jessenia Pothos
  • Manjula Pothos
  • Cebu Blue Pothos
  • N'joy Pothos
  • Pearls and Jade Pothos
  • Global Green Pothos
  • Scindapsus pictus 'Satin'
  • Scindapsus pictus 'Exotica'
  • Scindapsus treubii 'Moonlight
They're all cuttings, so it'll be several months until I can get mother plants going for each, but I should have a decent variety of colors and leaf shapes for the future.
 

FragileMind

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As a plant collector, I am surprised that you found some of those at a decent price. Jessenia, global green and Treubii moonlights are hard to come by cheaply. I will advise for the care of these plants in the terrarium, that the scindapsus have different requirements than the epiprenmum. And the N'Joy and Pearls and Jade are more sensitive to PH and nutrient levels in the soil. The lighting requirements are also different for them. Do you have your T's in a spot that gets natural light, or under florescent lights? The "Silver Satin" that you have a is a variety called scindapsis pictus argyraeus, it is known to be very slow growing, but hearty. You will find that most scindapsus put out a leaf at a rate of one per month per growth point, or slower.

If you have any plant questions I would be happy to help you out, and if you are looking for something interesting that grows quickly, is vining and has interesting variegation/leaves I would recommend a monstera siltepecana, just needs a little light, they can handle most of the abuse we put pothos through. Another great plant variety is syngonium. They seem fragile, but come back well, and can survive on artificial light. I have a Syngonium Podophyllum Berry Allusion in one of my terrariums.
 

l4nsky

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As a plant collector, I am surprised that you found some of those at a decent price. Jessenia, global green and Treubii moonlights are hard to come by cheaply. I will advise for the care of these plants in the terrarium, that the scindapsus have different requirements than the epiprenmum. And the N'Joy and Pearls and Jade are more sensitive to PH and nutrient levels in the soil. The lighting requirements are also different for them. Do you have your T's in a spot that gets natural light, or under florescent lights? The "Silver Satin" that you have a is a variety called scindapsis pictus argyraeus, it is known to be very slow growing, but hearty. You will find that most scindapsus put out a leaf at a rate of one per month per growth point, or slower.

If you have any plant questions I would be happy to help you out, and if you are looking for something interesting that grows quickly, is vining and has interesting variegation/leaves I would recommend a monstera siltepecana, just needs a little light, they can handle most of the abuse we put pothos through. Another great plant variety is syngonium. They seem fragile, but come back well, and can survive on artificial light. I have a Syngonium Podophyllum Berry Allusion in one of my terrariums.
Yeah, the prices weren't bad at all. It was right around $70 shipped for the whole lot and the seller had great reviews on Etsy. Right now, the cuttings will go into my temp/humidity controlled greenhouse with LED grow lights for a bit and then I'll probably move them outside for the summer when they get rooted/established. As for their eventual placement in enclosures, the rack I'm designing will have LED lighting as well.

I'm sure I'll take advantage of your offer at some point and hit up your inbox for advice, but for now can you expand a bit on the pH/nutrient/lighting requirements for the different cultivars as compared to the golden cultivar? I have some experience with some more sensitive plants like Nepenthes, but the whole point of pothos in a bioactive enclosure to me is hardiness, so I'd like to determine now if those select varieties should be included in my vivarium construction or if I should just keep them as house plants.

Thanks,
--Matt
 

vurzachee

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Yeah, the prices weren't bad at all. It was right around $70 shipped for the whole lot and the seller had great reviews on Etsy. Right now, the cuttings will go into my temp/humidity controlled greenhouse with LED grow lights for a bit and then I'll probably move them outside for the summer when they get rooted/established. As for their eventual placement in enclosures, the rack I'm designing will have LED lighting as well.

I'm sure I'll take advantage of your offer at some point and hit up your inbox for advice, but for now can you expand a bit on the pH/nutrient/lighting requirements for the different cultivars as compared to the golden cultivar? I have some experience with some more sensitive plants like Nepenthes, but the whole point of pothos in a bioactive enclosure to me is hardiness, so I'd like to determine now if those select varieties should be included in my vivarium construction or if I should just keep them as house plants.

Thanks,
--Matt
hi, please link me to the seller.

i work at home depot so i usually have my vendors find me plants when i want them. also here is a neon pothos i seperated last week
 

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l4nsky

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Cuttings arrived, all of them should make it thanks to the amazing packaging. It does appear I was shortshipped one cultivar and double shipped another, but overall I'm pleased. Really getting a use out of the greenhouse this year lol. 20210520_135131.jpg 20210520_173941.jpg
 

jenniferinny

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Hi, I would also appreciate a link to the seller. I tried, but there's so many pothos listings I just couldn't find it. I'm over here trying to slowly cobble together a collection of pothos with just what turns up at the local garden shop which is just the common one and there was once a neon but it was marked $40 for some ungodly reason.. lol

I would have been way further ahead if I had ordered cuttings back when I started looking for plants. :meh: Oh well, I am stupid sometimes.
 

l4nsky

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Hi, I would also appreciate a link to the seller. I tried, but there's so many pothos listings I just couldn't find it. I'm over here trying to slowly cobble together a collection of pothos with just what turns up at the local garden shop which is just the common one and there was once a neon but it was marked $40 for some ungodly reason.. lol

I would have been way further ahead if I had ordered cuttings back when I started looking for plants. :meh: Oh well, I am stupid sometimes.
Unfortunately, it appears she's all sold out at this time. I'll DM you the link so you can keep a watch on it though.
 

l4nsky

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Figure it's time for an update. All of the cuttings rooted and all but one have put off new growth (some more then others, having an issue with the N'joy cutting). The plan is to get about 20 nodes on each plant, make 18 cuttings or so, root them, and make a big mother plant for future bioactive cuttings.
20211104_181403.jpg
Neon, a classic pothos variant.

20211104_181417.jpg
Marble Queen. Really interesting variegation.

20211104_181423.jpg
Cebu Blue. I really like the leaf shape with this one.

20211104_181433.jpg
Jade. Straight green pothos, no variegation like the common and ubiquitous Golden Pothos

20211104_181500.jpg
Manjula. The more light this one gets, the less green it has and the leaves just wash out. Definently a candidate for more dimly lit enclosures in the future.

20211104_181509.jpg
Jessenia. Really nice subtle variegation.
 

l4nsky

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20211104_181517.jpg
Global Green. Had difficulty getting this cutting to root and it's slowly turning around. This one is pretty unique among the other cuttings.

20211104_181725.jpg
Hawaiian. From my limited understanding, it's basically a Golden Pothos variant that can grow exceedingly large.

20211104_181557.jpg
Scindapsus pictus 'Satin'.

20211104_181650.jpg
Scindapsus pictus 'Exotica'. I'm really liking the look of this plant.

20211104_181748.jpg
Scindapsus treubii 'Moonlight'. Possibly my favorite of all the cuttings I purchased. It's just stunning.
 

Venom671

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I know youre looking for pothos, but would you also consider monsteria species? 20211105_224619.jpg
 

l4nsky

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I know youre looking for pothos, but would you also consider monsteria species? View attachment 403169
Might be a tad bit too big for a 5g tote, but I've definently looked into them for houseplants. Why do the variegated forms have to be sooooo expensive though lol.
 

Venom671

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Might be a tad bit too big for a 5g tote, but I've definently looked into them for houseplants. Why do the variegated forms have to be sooooo expensive though lol.
So true xD my mother plant is already outgrowing its pot, frogdaddy.net has some dwarf species of monsteria that are just 👌 but have a hefty price tag as you stated.
 

Wolfram1

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Hey @l4nsky , do you perhaps have any updates to the plants and how they are doing. I imagine they must be positively sprawling unless the spiders destroyed them already XD

do any of them have more mature forms?

I have been thinking of getting myself some of the more common ones to spruce up my walls some more :) or perhaps some Pilodendron sp.
 

l4nsky

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Hey @l4nsky , do you perhaps have any updates to the plants and how they are doing. I imagine they must be positively sprawling unless the spiders destroyed them already XD

do any of them have more mature forms?

I have been thinking of getting myself some of the more common ones to spruce up my walls some more :) or perhaps some Pilodendron sp.
They haven't quite made it to the spiders yet as the rack is still a work in progress ;) .

So I'm actually in the process of making mother plants now for future cuttings (and household decorations).
20220527_141905.jpg
Here's the Neon cultivar currently going through the process, about a week out from being potted.

20220527_141836.jpg
Here are the new Jade, Marble Queen, and Cebu Blue mother plants that have finished the process. Each one has atleast 20 growth points, so they should just explode with growth as soon as I can put them outside.

20220527_141923.jpg
And here are some of the others waiting for their turn in the greenhouse. I'm probably going to do all three of the Scindapsus sp. (some not pictured) next. If I can get my Nepenthes and myrmecophyte out of the greenhouse and outside here soon, I'll be able to do 3 different cultivars at once to speed things up.
 

Wolfram1

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Hahaha, as always you shoot for the stars rather than aim for anything less.

I just cut up a few vines myself but instead of the neat and orderly growth tent, i stuck about 15-20 pieces with 3 nodes each into a single small plastic pot with dirt :rofl:
 
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