Hey all!
Welcome to the Philodendron guide. To start off I will tell you the story of my Philodendron plant, and how to make it grow better.
My Philodendron story.
A few years ago my mother brought home a new plant. She kept it in the bathroom for awhile but over the next few months it pretty much died down to one half dead leaf. So I put it in another room with some sun light, but not much. The leaf regained it’s greenness but it didn’t really do anything for a few months. After almost a year it had grown about 2-5 inches and gained another leaf, it was very pleasing to see. I then transferred it across the room where there where two windows, and much more sun light. It grew like gang busters growing almost 2-3 inches a week and gathering about 1-5 leaves every other week. I am now training it to climb a pole so it will drape down later. The vine has two branches a 6 inch vine shoot, and another which I estimate to be over 5 feet long. (Note: It grew 5 foot all in a space of 3-5 months).
Now how did you make it grow?
Our first no no was to place this plant somewhere that had no sun light at all. This is a very bad choice and could end in the death of your plant. Water it as soon as the dirt seams to dry, otherwise it will stunt your plants growth. If you find any dead leaves pick them off to make them more uniform. Don’t pick off half dead leaves! Wait until they are fully dead and dried out, you don’t want to tear the membrane of the plant.
Philodendrons are vines, but can be trained to be more of a bush if needed. I have not done this, but I can almost beat you on how to. You see each new segment (at least on my plant) has potential roots. bury them and the roots should grow. If you want it to be more of a vine you can allow them to grow over the pot and hang down. In order to make this happen put the potential roots in the dirt, this should make another plant in away.
Want to train your vine to be long and rap around something? Easy! Each time two new segments grow up wrap it around the item you are using, or if the item is to big to be wrapped around put loose tap on it to hold it in place. Once it wrapped around a few times it should almost continue the process on its own, if not you will have to continue to wrap it until it’s at the desired length.
Term- Segment: The stem between one leaf to the next leaf.
Term- Roots: The brown worm like stems at the end of each segment and attached to the leaf area.
I hope this guide helps. All this is from my experience with the Philodendron, your philodendron might be slightly different.