Limp and dying potho :( Please help!

Hello everyone, I'm new here so just let me know if I posted in the wrong place. This was my great-grandmothers plant. It has always been healthy with lots of leaves until recently. My cat got sick and peed in a couple of times and since then, he's lost all of his leaves and is super limp. When this first happened we replaced his soil and put rocks on top to discourage my kitty (who's fine now btw) from peeing in it again. However this poor plant just keeps getting worse. He's never looked this bad before and I really don't want to loose this plant. :( What should I do? Any ideas? Thanks in advance. Hopefully I can get my pics to post

Here is a picture, poor little guy :'(

Replace your pothos once again with new soil and rinse off, (very well), the root system and the entire plant before repotting. Last but not least, train your cat to quit the habit or you will either lose the plant or keep on doing this time and time again. Pothos(Epipremnum aureum) are very commonly grown as houseplants due to they are so easy to care for but cat urine,time and time again, may very well kill the plant.

SNS-9

These are real easy to re-start. Remove 3-4 inches of stem ends that have leaves and put them in water or potting mix. If potting mix I usually tent them loosly with a bread bag or a large baggie to create a little green house.

Note the green grey bumps along the bare stem, next tp the lower edge of the pot (in the picture). Those can turn into roots. Cut that bare stem into about 3" sections and lay in some potting soil and cover lightly, keep damp.

You might also consider putting it in a hanging pot to keep the cat out. Buy the cat a "cat mint" or "cat nip" to chew on, that won't hurt him and it's funny to watch them. barb

This message was edited Aug 21, 2011 7:07 PM

This message was edited Aug 21, 2011 7:08 PM

I would take the plant out of the pot you have it in and wash all the dirt off and repot it in a plastic pot. Trim the plant back to encourage growth at the joints. You can cut off any dead or rotted roots and it should be okay, don't overwater him, thats the easiest way to kill it. I've found that pothos need to breathe and a heavy glazed pot is not going to work for you. I hope it does fine, they are a very hardy plant. Acts

DO not over it !!!WATER!!!

I agree with cheddarpink--root another piece or two. You could still try to save the original as well. In the front of your picture, I see a piece that has tiny little bits growing from it--those are roots that will grow quickly if you clip the piece off where it joins the main stem and put it in a jar of water. They root very quickly and, when they form enough new roots, you can pot them up and have another plant. I also agree that it would be wise to rinse off the roots of the mother plant and pot it in fresh soil. These plants look great hanging from the ceiling--do you have a place where you could do that? That way your cat can't reach it to pee on it again.

I cant see the picture properly but is the darker pot sitting inside an orange terracota pot that holds water like a bowl, if so, you need to remove the orange bowl as these plants don't like to sit in wet soil, I would do as stated earlier and remove all the soil, wash the whole plant gently in Luke warm water to remove dust, acidic cat pee and buy good quality houseplant compost to re-pot it, add to this some small grit so the soil is free draining, these plants don't like direct sunlight but a bright sunny room away from window till it has recovered.
as mentioned, lift the plant up higher so the cat cant get to the soil as the pot probably still smells of cat pee, I would wash out the pots in washing up liquid and rinse well, the teracota pots are porous therefore will still be smelling attractive to the cat.

Take 6 inch cuttings and remove a few bottom leaves, stick the right way up into a jar of clean cold water, sit in a light area and in a few weeks you should see roots, make sure you keep the water topped up. Hope this helps along with the others replies, good luck.
WeeNel.

I would repot it using new soil (a mixture of about 1/2 heavy black potting or top soil, 1/4 of potting soil - like Miracle Gro Potting Mixture - that doesn't have a lot of black dirt in it, & 1/4 of sand) in a terra cotta pot (not as easy to over water in these as it is in glass or plastic) that has been soaked in water for a couple hours. If you don't soak it, it will pull all the moisture out of your soil. You might want to put small rocks (aquarium rocks work good) mixed with charcoal pieces in the bottom of the pot for extra drainage. The charcoal will help keep it fresh and maybe filter out any urine that may be left. When you 'water it in' to remove the air from around the roots don't give it very much - just enough to get the top of the soil wet. Whenever I have a plant that needs first aid, and since I live in Wisconsin if its warm enough, I put it outside pretty much out of the sun - especially during mid day - like on the north side of the house. Since you live in Vegas, the less direct sun it gets, the better and you should probably check it at least once a day for water. I agree with the others about taking some cuttings to root just in case. Hope you can pull it thru! Good Luck!! :)

I forgot to tell you one thing---- Before you add anything to the pot, put a coffee filter in the bottom of it so the dirt and/or rocks and charcoal don't clog or fall out of the drainage hole.

i would take the plant out wash off the roots cut them back if they aren't white and firm, let the roots air out for a bit and repot. and put it in hanging basket so kitty can't get to it!

As Kimikat said put some thing over the hole to keep the dirt in. I use pieces of door or window screen. Either plastic or metal, haven't noticed much difference. barb

I think it's important to the degree it's almost pivotal to proficiency that growers understand there is a direct relationship between the size of the particles a soil is made from and its water retention and the height of the perched water table. Perched water is the water that occupies the bottom of containers filled with heavy (water-retentive) soil and will not drain from the pot. It remains in the pot until it evaporates or the plant uses it.

The problem with perched water is that it begins to kill roots VERY quickly - within hours. It's not unusual for these water retentive soils to support 4 inches of perched water or more. Soils made with heavy black potting soil or topsoil, sand, peat-based container soils, compost, coir, or any combination of the aforementioned are going to support a LOT of perched water, making it very difficult for most growers to keep plants healthy, let alone coaxing them to grow at anywhere near their genetic potential. IOW - they make your job MUCH harder than it has to be.

Drainage layers do not promote drainage. Adding a drainage layer of coarse material to the pot bottom simply causes water to perch higher in the container. For example - a soil that supports 3" of perched water on top of 2" of "drainage" material simply raises the level of perched water in the container. If your container is 5" deep, the entire soil mass would remain saturated after watering thoroughly. Since the volume of air in the soil is equal in importance to the volume of water, it's very easy to see this type of scenario does not favor the plant.

What DOES favor the plant is a soil that drains very well & supports very little or no perched water at the bottom of the container. Roots LOVE air in the root zone, lots of it, and hate excess water. Since water retention and the ht of the perched water table is DIRECTLY related to particle size, the path to making it much easier to keep plants healthy and allowing a much wider margin for grower error lies in using larger particles as the primary fraction of the soil. I can't emphasize enough how much easier and more productive these types of soils are to grow in.

Soil choice is probably the most important consideration when putting together or repotting a planting. The soil is the foundation of every conventional container planting, and we all know how difficult it is to build anything lasting on a poor foundation. Even the newest newbie can pot a plant in a quality soil and get it to grow very well - every time - if they follow some very simple guidelines based on a good soil, good light, and a good nutritional supplementation program. A good soil also takes most of the guesswork out of when to water, which all but eliminates the number one killer of houseplants - over-watering.

The plant in the OP is/was suffering from ammonia toxicity (which was probably its undoing) and probably plasmolysis, which is a technical term for fertilizer burn due to the high level of solutes (dissolved solids) in the urine. Fertilizer burn occurs not only from over-fertilizing, but from a high level of anything dissolved in the soil solution - sugar can cause it as easily as fertilizer or table salt. Cat urine is also very basic (opposite of acidic) and can cause severe nutritional disorders and other problems if not corrected immediately.

Al