Why is my golden pothos sweating?
I work in a windowless office. My wife got me a plant to spruce up the place, it's supposed to be watered once a fortnight and need very little light.
It sat in the dark in the weekend and when I got it it had these water drops on many of its leaves. What's up?
8 replies
It went over your budget spreadsheet this weekend and it has some bad news for you
Oh no.
Our pothos do that too. Pretty normal stuff according to my wife.
Plants evapotranspire.
Fancy word for what you might call "sweating". Normally you won't see it because the humidity evaporates as quickly as it builds up in and on the leaves.
Water moves from the roots out to the leaves to transport itself and nutrients. The excess generally doesn't go back down, but instead evaporates through pores on the leaves.
I'm not sure this is that, but if the air in the office gets cold/humid, you'll see the water bead up on the leaves instead of evaporating.
Thanks! So not a sign of over watering or some other stress, I take?
I don't think so.
If you know the species of the plant you might look up what to look for in terms of under/over-watering.
But "morning dew" is something you'll see on plants all the time in nature. That's when the cold air during the night causes water to bead up on their leaves. It'll disappear as it falls off and starts evaporating again with warmer temperatures.
Thanks!
My dieffenbachia drips water from the tips of its leaves after a thorough watering. I believe it's called guttation. I think that's another reason the leaves get wet.