Trailing & Vining Houseplants

Trailing and Vining Houseplants

These are the plants for the places a pot cannot go: the top of a bookcase, a bracket by the window, a hook over the sink, a pole in the corner. Some of them spill, some of them climb, and most will do either depending on what you give them to grab. All twelve are the ones we grow for indoor life, potted and rooted rather than shipped bare.

Trailers and Climbers Are Not the Same Job

Trailers look best falling. Give them height and let them go. Jade, Neon, Marble Queen, N’Joy and Hawaiian Pothos are the easiest of these by a wide margin, and Philodendron Brasil does the same thing with a lime stripe down the middle of each leaf. Spider Plant and Curly Spider Plant arch rather than trail, then throw plantlets on long stems over the edge of the pot.

Climbers want something to hold. Given a moss pole or a trellis they grow larger leaves and stand up; left on a shelf they will trail instead, with smaller foliage. Monstera Adansonii Swiss Cheese Vine is the compact one, Monstera Deliciosa is the full-sized statement, Monstera Super Golden is its variegated form, and Syngonium Milk Confetti starts as a tidy mound and begins to vine once it has some size on it.

Care

Light

Bright indirect light grows the fullest plant. Pothos and Philodendron cope with a spot well back from a window better than anything else here, which is why they end up in so many offices, but expect longer gaps between leaves. The variegated ones need the most light of the group, because the white and cream areas of a leaf carry no chlorophyll and a plant in a dim corner will push plain green growth to feed itself. Direct midday sun through glass scorches all of them.

Water

Let the top inch or two of soil dry, then water thoroughly until it runs from the drainage holes. This group would rather be a little dry than a little wet. Leaves that droop all at once and recover within a few hours were thirsty. Soft, mushy stems at the soil line mean the roots have been sitting wet, and that is the harder problem to come back from.

Keeping them full instead of stringy

Cut them back. These plants branch from the point where you prune, so trimming a long vine by a third pushes two or three new shoots from near the cut. Tuck the cuttings back into the same pot, where they root and thicken the plant from the middle. Pothos, Philodendron and Syngonium all root from a node in a glass of water within a couple of weeks.

A Note on Pets

Pothos, Philodendron, Monstera and Syngonium are aroids and are not pet safe; they contain calcium oxalate crystals that irritate a pet’s mouth and throat. The Spider Plants are the exception in this collection. If you have an animal that chews, hang these well out of reach or shop Pet Safe Plants instead.

More Indoor Plants

Browse Indoor Ferns, Alocasia, or the full Houseplants collection.