propagate the stems without leaves.. its very simple ... i would recommend you root it in damp media.. not in water

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=propagating+pathos&iax=videos&ia=videos

the plant will put out proper new growth ..

it has nothing to do with bottom or top watering ... but whatever you do.. if you do it properly .... plants will thrive ...

ken

1. Some people seem to think pothos plants do well to have a little root binding, some think it's better to allow the roots room to grow. What is the consensus among experienced house-pant nurturers? Root congestion is always a limiting factor, and the limitations begin just before the plant reaches a state where the root' soil mass can be lifted from the plant intact. The image below is about when you might expect a plant's growth rate, vitality (health), appearance, and where applicable - yields, to be negatively affected by root congestion. In the second image, limitations are at the point of being serious and would be becoming conspicuous to observant growers.

The image above, showing the lower half of the root/ soil mass having been removed, was the first step beginning a repotting session (after depotting the plant, i.e.).

2. We were away from home for a couple months and left our place in the generally excellent care of a friend, who roomed here. I'd given instructions about taking care of our houseplants, and (it being winter) said to water the pothos at most every 10 days, and said to only bottom water. However, our dear friend forgot these details and top watered. Several of the plant's individual vines lost their leaves (on the upper half of the vine, closest to the pot). The plant didn't shed leaves because it was watered from the top. It more likely pitched a fit because it was over or under-watered, most likely the former. Is it likely this can stimulate other (short) shoots to grow out and produce lots of leaves? No. There is a chemical/ growth regulator (auxin) which is synthesized primarily in the growing tip of the vines. One of its jobs is to inhibit lateral growth/ new branching along the vine/ branch/ stem. It does this through suppression of buds or preformed branches.

The buds from which the new branches in leaf axils (crotch formed by leaf stem and branch it's attached to) grew at the same time the leaves (now mature) were growing, so they were ALWAYS there and ready to grow, except they were being suppressed by the chemical I mentioned. You can see by the image that I removed the branch apex (tip of the branch where extension growth takes place) which eliminated the chemical/ growth regulator which was suppressing growth of these buds.

In your case, it seems you removed entire vines, when the best choice would have been to cut the vines back to a point where only 2 nodes remained on the leaf. Reason: Since you eliminated the source of the chemical/ growth regulator that suppresses lateral growth, new branches with new leaves would have formed at the 2 nodes you left.

From that point forward, and in order to keep the plant full, allow each vine to grow 2 leaves. When the 3rd is starting to open, pinch the vine (remove the growing tip) so just the 2 leaves remain. From those 2 leaves you'll get 2 new branches. When you pinch those, you'll have 4 new branches, then 8, then 16, 34, 64 ........ .

Al

If you look at pics of mature Pothos (Epipremnum) growing up trees in tropical locations, that should let you know that no ordinary pot could ever be too big for a Pothos.

Thanks to everyone for offering info & suggestions. Tapla, thanks so much for your explanation. You wrote, "There is a chemical/ growth regulator (auxin) which is synthesized primarily in the growing tip of the vines. One of its jobs is to inhibit lateral growth/ new branching along the vine/ branch/ stem. It does this through suppression of buds or preformed branches."

Yes, I understand this and have been trimming off growing tips on all the vines. True, this always make side shoots on the vines possible & likely. However, I don't see why — if the plant's roots are healthy & the soil sufficiently rich in nutrients — newer shoots would not emerge out of the root system, become lengthy & produce leaves. Which was one thing I was asking about. Am I missing something in terms of understanding the growth potential?

Now I'm wondering if I misinterpreted what you said. I'd need to see where the cuts were made when you removed the vines.

Not counting the leaf attached to the main branch, this image shows a (small) higher order branch with 3 leaves on it growing toward the bottom left. The third leaf is hard to see as it's in the background growing away from the viewer. The large/ mature leaf at the base of the smaller branch is actually attached to the larger, lower order (thick) branch and the branch is growing in the axil (crotch) of that leaf.

If I were to cut the end of the small, higher order branch off, leaving only 2 leaves, a new branch will grow in the axils of both of the small leaves because I would have removed the source of the growth regulator that suppresses lateral buds. If, however, I was to remove the entire small branch, it wouldn't activate buds on the lower order (thicker) branch because that branch has its own auxin source(s) which would still be suppressing bud activation.

If you are wondering if new shoots will arise from root tissues, I can only say that some plants are capable of forming de novo (from the beginning/anew) adventitious buds on root cuttings or on the root system if they receive the appropriate stimulus (sunlight, air movement, drier conditions. The de novo adventitious buds I mentioned require that the plant is able to dedifferentiate root tissue into meristematic tissue (think stem cells), then redifferentiate the meristematic tissue into shoot buds. That's the process, but I don't know if pothos is capable of generating de novo buds.

If you were thinking roots but in reality the new growth was generated from the stem instead of roots - no problem there. Almost all plants are capable of that.

If I didn't answer the question and you still want the info, I'm sure I can provide the answer once the question is clear in my mind.

Al