Ask any plant expert or greenhouse employee what plant they recommend for someone just starting out with houseplants, and a pothos will inevitably come up.
These low maintenance plants look beautiful with their vines trailing off a high shelf or hanging from baskets. Let’s talk about which kind of pothos you might want to bring home next.
What does a pothos plant look like?
A pothos, or epipremnum aureum, is a trailing vine with heart shaped leaves. Different pothos varieties may have white, yellow, or pale green variegations on the green foliage. You may also see it sold as devil’s ivy, ivy arum, or taro vine, but pothos is far and away the most common name for the plant in the United States.
How do you care for a pothos plant?
Pothos are usually listed as great beginner houseplants because they aren’t particularly fussy. They can handle anything from low light up to bright indirect light, and only need a regular, well-draining potting mix. Let the soil dry out a bit between waterings—if you keep a watchful eye out, your pothos will actually tell you when it needs water. When the vines start to look a little droopy, give your pothos a good drink. It will be back to its perky self within hours!
Growfully Protip
While bright indirect light will help your pothos thrive, direct sunlight will burn the leaves.
How many pothos varieties are there?
There are over a dozen types of pothos, though the number will change depending on who you ask. Today, we’re going to talk about 9 of our favorites, but you can definitely find more pothos varieties if you look for them!
Jade pothos
The jade pothos has solid, dark green leaves. The leaves are narrower compared to those of some of the other pothos varieties. This is one of the best types of pothos for low light conditions, as it doesn’t have any variegation that is brought out by light.
Golden pothos
One of the most well-recognized pothos varieties, the golden pothos has yellow variegation evenly scattered across its green foliage. Its leaves are a more rounded heart shape than those of the jade pothos, and can get especially large when allowed to climb up a trellis or moss pole.
Growfully Protip
The variegation will be more pronounced in brighter light than it will in low light.
Marble queen pothos
The marble queen pothos looks much like the golden pothos, but with white variegation instead of yellow. If you notice the variegation fading and the leaves turning fully green, try increasing the amount of light that your pothos is getting—it will help the variegation be more pronounced. Note that the marble queen is a slower grower than the varieties with more green on their leaves, so it will take more time to get a full, bushy plant with long vines.
NJoy pothos
Like the marble queen pothos, the NJoy pothos has white and green foliage. The key difference is that the leaves of the NJoy have much more white, in bigger patches, rather than scattered variegation.
Manjula pothos
The manjula pothos can be mistaken from a distance for a snow queen pothos or more variegated marble queen, but a closer look at the leaves reveals the difference: where the queens have only white variegation, the manjula leaves are spread with both cream and pale green on the darker green background.
Neon Pothos
The neon pothos is easy to detect because of its, you guessed it, neon colored leaves. Rather than medium or dark green foliage, the neon pothos has bright chartreuse, heart shaped leaves.
Jessenia pothos
One of the hardest pothos varieties to get your hands on, the jessenia pothos has medium green leaves with scattered chartreuse variegation.
Cebu blue pothos
Unlike the types of pothos varieties listed above, the cebu blue isn’t a epipremnum aureum. Instead, it is a epipremnum pinnatum. This plant is in high demand, and is beloved for its thin, arrow-shaped, pointed blue-green leaves.
Silver Satin Pothos
Though this plant is usually lumped in with other pothos, the Silver Satin (sometimes also called just Silver or just Satin) “Pothos” is actually a scindapsus pictus. However, it has similar care needs to a pothos and a similar vining growth habitat to a pothos. The leaves of a Silver Satin are a medium green with silver spots, and the whole leaf has an almost metallic sheen.
Thank you!
Thank you for educating me about the different varieties of pothos. I now have an idea of the best way to treat them. I placed my marble in a coco pole but will treat them as hanging which will help them grow better. I also have the neon and njoy varieties
Do you offer a book on the pothos with the pictures?
We do not, sorry!
That’s a picture of a Njoy pothos you have shown as Snow Queen. The snow queen is a variation of the marble queen with whiter leaves with green spots
Good catch! We will get that corrected – thank you!