Gadenin日本語Get the appThe decision that shapes the whole year
Left alone, an arrowhead plant does not stay the tidy mound it was when you bought it. Within a year or two the stems lengthen, the gaps between the leaves open up, and the plant either trails over the side of the pot or reaches for something to climb. That is normal behavior, not neglect: it is a climber that has been sold to you in its juvenile form.
So you choose. Keep it compact by pinching the growing tips out every few weeks, which holds it in its bushy, arrowhead-leaved phase indefinitely. Or give it a moss pole and let it climb, in which case the stems thicken, the leaves get much larger, and the blades split into lobes until a mature leaf has three, five or more segments and no longer looks like an arrow at all. Both are good plants. What does not work is drifting between them, which gives you long bare stems and small leaves.
Make the choice in spring, before the year's growth starts, and put the support in when you repot rather than driving it into a full pot later.
Pinching versus climbing, side by side
The practical differences are worth knowing before you commit, because the two routes need different amounts of attention and end in very different plants.
| Aspect | Pinched and compact | Climbing a pole |
|---|---|---|
| What you do | Nip out the tip above a leaf every 3 to 4 weeks in growth | Tie new stems to the pole as they lengthen |
| Leaf shape | Stays a simple arrowhead | Develops lobes, eventually 3 to 5 or more segments |
| Leaf size | Stays small | Doubles or more once the stems thicken |
| Habit | Bushy, spills over the pot rim | Upright, gains a foot (30 cm) or more a year |
| Spare material | Every pinching is a free cutting | Only when you cut the pole back |
Pinch just above a leaf, not in the middle of a bare stretch of stem. Two new shoots normally break from the node below the cut, which is where the extra bushiness comes from.
The year, season by season
Growth follows the warmth and the light in the room rather than any date, so treat these as stages rather than months. The plant enters each stage when the conditions arrive, which for a heated room may be several weeks ahead of the garden outside.
| Stage | Main jobs | What tells you it has started |
|---|---|---|
| Early spring | Repot if needed, put in the pole, start feeding at half strength | First furled spear of the year at a growing tip |
| Late spring to summer | Feed monthly, pinch or tie in, take cuttings, water as the top inch dries | A new leaf every two or three weeks |
| Early autumn | Last feed, last pinching, move closer to the window | Room settling below 68F (20C) |
| Late autumn to winter | No feed, no pruning, water only when the pot is light | New leaves stop opening |
| Late winter | Clean the leaves, check the roots, plan the year's shape | Days lengthening, no growth yet |
Feeding, and when not to
A balanced liquid houseplant feed at half the strength on the label, once a month while the plant is actively growing, is enough. Arrowhead plants are not heavy feeders, and the usual result of feeding more is a white crust on the compost surface, brown leaf tips and scorched root ends.
Stop entirely once new leaves stop appearing in autumn, and do not start again until you see the first new spear in spring. Never feed a plant that is dry, sick or freshly repotted; water it first, or fix the problem first.
If the leaf margins are browning and there is a pale crust on the compost, flush the pot. Run water through it slowly for a minute or two, let it drain fully, and skip the next two feeds.
What to write down
This plant repays a few lines a year more than most houseplants, because everything it does is gradual and it is very hard to remember afterwards whether growth was better or worse than last summer.
Record the date of the first new leaf in spring and the last in autumn, which brackets your real growing season and tells you when to start and stop feeding next year. Record the date and pot size at every repotting. Record which route you chose, pinch or pole, and roughly how often you pinched. Record the date the first lobed leaf appeared, because that is the marker that the plant has genuinely matured. And note where the plant stood in each season along with anything that went wrong, so that a scorched leaf at the height of summer or a bare stem at the end of winter can be traced back to a position rather than blamed on the watering.