Money Plant: How to Grow and Take Care

Money plant or Scindapsus aureus is one of the most hassle free and easy to grow indoor plant. It is famous for its heart-shaped white, yellow and dark green shiny leaves which helps purify air.

Uses
A very hardy indoor creeper used extensively as trailers, hanging baskets and as a free standing specimen on bark totem.

Description
It is a fleshy vine with broad heart shape waxy, dark green leaves with yellow variegation. Under high light conditions such as glasshouses, leaves become predominately yellow.

History
Originally from the Solomon Islands it has been a main stray as an interior foliage plant, because of its tolerance for adverse indoor growing conditions. Pothos belongs to the aroid (Araceae) family, which contains more than 100 genera including a number of popular foliaged plant genera such as Aglaonema, Anthurium, Diffenbachia, Monsteria and Philodendron.


Propagation
Money plant can be planted around the year with ease. Mostly it propagate by taking stem cutting from parent plant. When taking the cutting look for the nodes which have roots coming out of them, they are easier to plant and you would have more success rate.

Planting
After taking the cutting, make a small hole in the soil and plant the stem(and any root if present) in the soil and press the soil firmly. Water the soil and keep the plant in shade.

Temperature
Prefers warmer temperatures of between 15c and 30c. Lower leaves will turn yellow or produce rust like spots if temperatures fall below 10c to 12c.

Water and Light
Always keep the soil moist but money plant doesn't like wet feet so make sure the soil is rich in organic material.Reduce water substantially in lower light conditions. Over watering causes root rot and leaf drop. Keep the plant in shade or indirect sunlight. Less light it gets, darker its leaves would become.In very lower light environments, it will loose its variegation and new leaves become much smaller.

Humidity
Tolerates high humidity and enjoys misting in the high light areas.

Pests
Is relatively free of pests while its maintained in a healthy condition. Is prone to attack by mealybug, thrips and mites when under environmental maintenance stress. If there is any fungal infection clean the leaves with soap solution mixed with water and keep it in sunlight for couple of hours.

Care
Plant requires very less care. Just make sure that you don't overeater it. Yellow leaves is a sign of overwatering and excess supply of fertilizer.

Being a Climber, in ideal condition Money plant can reach 2 meters of hight. So give it some support in the form of a stick/log or a string.

Some more information about Money Plant:
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Liliopsida
Order: Alismatales
Family: Araceae
Subfamily: Monsteroideae
Genus: Epipremnum
Species: E. aureum



Gardening

Hello to my old friends and welcome to new ones.

Finally I have moved my blog to blogger.com. I am very excited about its new features.

Talking about excitments, there is one more thing that excites me alot, gardening! It might sound strange to some but plants are my passion. I can spend hours and hours working my garden or browsing plant nurseries. And the best part about this hobby is that it's very cheap to maintain and it never fails to impress ;-)

This blog is my way of sharing my years of experience. Here I would post articles about all sorts of new and old plants I am experimenting with.