Your Pothos Plants Will Flourish With The Help Of This Kitchen Leftover

Pothos (Epipremnum auream), also known as hunter's rove or devil's ivy, are low-maintenance indoor plants you don't need a green thumb to grow. But saving this kitchen waste could help give these houseplants a boost. As it turns out, coffee grounds have beneficial properties that help pothos plants to thrive. While used coffee grounds are more of a soil supplement than a fertilizer, they will add some micronutrients, including calcium, potassium, magnesium, and phosphorus, as well as nitrogen and carbon, into the soil. Pothos plants generally don't need too much fertilizer, and coffee grounds are an easy solution for giving your houseplants a little extra help.

The nutrients added to the soil from fertilizing plants with coffee grounds, particularly the nitrogen, often feed the microorganisms within the soil that keep it healthy. Though this doesn't directly feed nutrients to your pothos until the grounds truly break down, keeping the soil and its microbes in good condition will aid your plant's growth by improving the structure and drainage of the soil. Spent coffee grounds will also help with aerating the soil, which pothos plants particularly enjoy. Despite the benefits of these kitchen leftovers, using an overabundance of grounds in your plants may end up slowing your plant's growth due to the caffeine in coffee. Because of this, it's important to consider how you're giving coffee grounds to your pothos and in what quantities.

There are a few methods for administering used coffee grounds to your pothos plant. While you might simply pour a small amount of the grounds onto the soil and carefully mix it in, you could add them to your compost instead to help your plants later. Alternatively, try to make a liquid soil amending solution to feed to your pothos. Combine one teaspoon of your used grounds with a gallon of water and leave it for a few days, giving it a quick stir every so often. Strain the grounds from the water and then use a small amount of the coffee solution to give your plants a drink.

Pothos plants love soil that drains well and prefer to be watered once the dirt has started to dry out. Though coffee grounds' nutrients will feed the soil's microorganisms and improve drainage, adding too many used grounds directly into the soil can cause water retention. When caring for a pothos plant and supplementing it with coffee grounds, be careful with how much of this kitchen leftover you're adding to your plant to prevent it from becoming waterlogged. Amending soil with coffee grounds may also help to ward off pests, giving your pothos plant a peaceful environment to grow and flourish.