Prune Your Money Plant Here — Not There — and Watch It Branch Within Weeks (Pothos & Pilea)

Two plants share the money plant nickname, and they share the same problem: left unpruned, both stretch in one direction only. Pothos (Epipremnum aureum) sends out ever-longer vines until one stem trails across an entire shelf. Pilea peperomioides grows upward, leaving the lower stem bare until the pancake-shaped leaves end up clustered somewhere near the ceiling.

Pruning fixes both — but not in the same way. Most guides lump them together and say “cut above a node,” which is right for pothos and misleading for Pilea. This guide separates them clearly, explains the biology once, and gives you a concrete process for each plant.

What Pruning Actually Does to a Money Plant

Every vine tip produces a hormone called auxin, which flows down the stem and suppresses the dormant buds sitting at each node. Those buds are present and viable — they are simply receiving a chemical signal to stay dormant while the tip is growing.

Remove the tip and two things happen in quick succession. Auxin levels drop at the nodes below the cut. More significantly, sugar concentrations surge outward from the wound at approximately 100 centimetres per hour — far faster than auxin depletion alone could explain, according to a 2023 review in Nature Plants [5]. Cytokinin, a hormone that activates dormant tissue, rises simultaneously. Strigolactone — a compound that actively suppresses branching — decreases. The result: dormant axillary buds receive a surge of energy and a lift on their chemical restraints, and new growth begins.

Free printable garden plans for when you’re ready to grow outside too

Three pre-planned beds — pollinator, kitchen and cut-flower — from the free Blooming Expert Garden Library.

Send me the plans

I agree to receive emails from Blooming Expert and accept the Privacy Policy. Unsubscribe anytime.

This is the mechanism behind pruning for bushiness in any plant. Knowing it helps you make smarter decisions — including why a cut in the wrong place, or made in poor light conditions, fails to produce the branching you expect.

How to Prune Pothos for Bushy, Multi-Stem Growth

Pothos responds to pruning faster and more reliably than almost any houseplant. Here is the process in order.

Identify the nodes first. Nodes are the slightly raised rings or bumps along the stem where a leaf connects, or where an aerial root — a small, brownish nub — is already growing. The smooth section of stem between two nodes is the internode. Cuts made in an internode produce stubs that go nowhere; new branches only emerge at or just above a node.

Cut just above a node — not below it. The RHS [1] specifies cutting “just above a leaf” so that “new shoots will sprout from the leaf joints.” In practice, leave a few millimetres of stem above the node — enough to protect the bud without leaving a long, dead stub.

Choose where to cut based on the effect you want.

• For a fuller, multi-stemmed plant: Cut each vine back close to the crown where stems meet the soil. The plant will produce several shorter new stems rather than a single long one continuing from the cut point.
• For length control while maintaining existing vines: Cut each long vine at the point where you want it to stop, always just above a node. New growth will emerge at that junction, giving you side shoots rather than an ever-extending single trail [6].

How much to remove per session. Remove no more than one-third of the plant’s total stems at once [7]. For a very leggy pothos, stagger the pruning across two or three sessions a few weeks apart.

Best timing. Spring through early summer gives the fastest response. Pothos actively grows in warmth — 18–27°C (65–80°F) — and slows in cooler months [2]. Pruning in autumn or winter works biologically, but you may be left with bare stubs until the following spring when growth resumes.

Tool hygiene. Use sharp, clean scissors or pruning shears for a clean cut. Wear gloves — pothos sap contains calcium oxalate crystals that can irritate skin [1].

The Cuttings Trick: Fill a Sparse Pot in One Session

Every stem section you just removed can become a new plant, and the fastest way to make a sparse pothos look full immediately is to root those cuttings and replant them back into the same pot.

Take each cutting and ensure it includes at least one healthy node — two or three is better. Remove the lowest leaf. Place the cut ends directly into the same potting mix alongside the existing plant, pressing the soil gently around each stem to ensure contact with the node. Alternatively, root them in water first; pothos cuttings develop roots in one to three weeks. See our guide to propagating pothos in water for the full step-by-step process.

The result is an immediately fuller pot, with new stems growing alongside the original. Over the following month, each cutting establishes its own root system and becomes an independent growth point. For complete pothos care — light requirements, watering frequency, fertiliser, and common problems — the complete pothos growing guide has everything you need.

Pilea Peperomioides: Same Goal, Different Rules

Pilea peperomioides — the Chinese money plant — shares the money plant nickname with pothos, and pruning advice for the two is often treated as interchangeable. This is a mistake, because the two plants have genuinely different growth architectures.

Pothos is a trailing vine with multiple nodes capable of branching laterally anywhere along the stem. Pilea grows on a single, central vertical stem. That stem does not produce lateral branches along its length the way pothos does. If you prune back a Pilea vine expecting nodes to sprout side shoots, nothing much will happen — Pilea simply is not built that way.

What Pilea does instead is produce pups: small plantlets that emerge from underground rhizomes at the base of the mother plant. This is how Pilea multiplies naturally, and it is also the primary mechanism for achieving the full, multi-stemmed look most growers want.

The RHS [4] recommends cutting tall Pilea stems back in spring or summer to stimulate new growth from the base. In practice:

• If the main stem has become leggy, pinch or cut the growing tip. This stops upward growth and may produce limited branching very close to the cut site, though the response is not as reliable as in pothos.
• To build a fuller plant, remove pups once they reach about 2–3 inches tall (5–8 cm) and replant them alongside the mother plant in the same container. Several stems of different ages clustered together create the layered, bushy appearance the plant is known for.
• To encourage more pup production, pinch pups off as soon as they emerge rather than letting them grow large. This redirects energy back to the main plant, which often responds by producing additional offsets from the base.
• To prevent lopsided growth, rotate the pot a quarter turn at each watering [4]. Without rotation, Pilea’s flat leaves all angle toward the light source and the plant develops an uneven silhouette.

For full Pilea care details including light requirements, watering, and soil, see our Pilea peperomioides growing guide.

The Conditions That Decide Whether New Growth Actually Appears

The most common reason a correctly pruned money plant stays sparse is insufficient light. Pothos is well-known for tolerating low light — it will survive in a dim corner — but surviving and branching are different things. The axillary buds awakened by pruning need photosynthetic energy to develop into new stems. In a poorly lit spot, that energy simply is not available.

Move the plant to within 60–90 cm of an east- or west-facing window where it receives bright, indirect light for several hours a day. In this position, most pothos show visible new shoots within 10–21 days of pruning. In low light, the same cut may produce nothing for weeks, or until the plant is relocated.

Temperature is the second factor. Clemson Extension [2] recommends 18–27°C (65–80°F) for active pothos growth. Below about 13°C (55°F), growth slows sharply. Keep the plant away from cold draughts, air conditioning vents, and single-glazed windows in winter.

Troubleshooting: Why Your Money Plant Still Looks Sparse

If your pothos has been leggy for a long time and isn’t responding to pruning alone, our article on why pothos goes leggy and how to fix it covers the underlying causes in detail.

A Safety Note Worth Keeping in Mind

Pothos and Pilea are not interchangeable on safety. According to the ASPCA [3], golden pothos (Epipremnum aureum) is toxic to dogs and cats: the insoluble calcium oxalate crystals cause oral irritation, intense burning of the mouth and lips, excessive drooling, vomiting, and difficulty swallowing. Keep pothos out of reach of pets and young children, and wear gloves when pruning to avoid skin irritation from the sap.

Pilea peperomioides is non-toxic to pets and humans, making it the better choice for households where animals have unsupervised access to houseplants.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you prune pothos all the way back?
Yes. Pothos tolerates hard pruning well. Cut each stem back to within 10–15 cm of the crown, always just above a node, and new stems will grow from the remaining nodes. Do this in spring for the fastest recovery.

How long after pruning does pothos branch?
In bright indirect light (60–90 cm from a window) and warmth (18–27°C / 65–80°F), visible new shoots typically emerge within 10–21 days. In low light or during winter, it can take several weeks or show no response until conditions improve in spring.

Does Pilea branch from the stem the way pothos does?
No. Pilea’s architecture does not produce lateral branches along the main stem. Cutting the tip stops upward growth and may cause limited branching very close to the cut, but the most reliable way to get a fuller Pilea is to propagate and replant the basal pups around the mother plant.

Sources

1. How to grow epipremnum — RHS
2. How to Grow Pothos Indoors — Clemson HGIC
3. Golden Pothos toxicity — ASPCA
4. How to grow Pilea — RHS
5. Lessons from a century of apical dominance research — Nature Plants / PMC