Rooting pothos cuttings in water versus perlite
I had a long trailing stem of golden pothos that needed trimming anyway, so I cut it into ten pieces, each with two leaves and one leaf joint with the little brown root bump below it, and tried two rooting methods side by side on the kitchen windowsill. Five in a jar of tap water, five pushed into a pot of damp perlite with a plastic bag over the top for humidity. Same light, same room, same temperature around 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Water, day by day: nothing visible until day six, when the first white root tip appeared on two of the cuttings. By day twelve all five had roots, the longest about an inch. By day twenty-one the roots were two to three inches long, white and slightly translucent, with a few side branches. I changed the water every three days and rinsed the jar, and there was no rot. One cutting put out a new leaf at day eighteen.
Perlite: slower to show anything, because I could not see it, and I resisted the urge to dig. I pulled one at day ten and it had a quarter-inch of root with fine hairs on it, visibly different from the smooth water roots. I put it back. At day twenty-one I tipped the pot out and all five had rooted, with roots about an inch and a half long, branched, hairy and somewhat tougher to the touch. Two had new leaves.
Then the real test: potting up. All ten went into small pots of regular mix on the same day. The perlite cuttings did not blink. The water cuttings sulked for about ten days, with the lower leaves going slightly soft, and one of them lost a leaf. By six weeks they had all recovered and I honestly could not tell them apart.
Verdict for my windowsill: water is faster to root, more fun to watch and completely fine for pothos, which is one of the most forgiving plants there is. Perlite produces roots that are ready for soil from the first day and skips the sulk. For something fussier than pothos I would use perlite. For a jar on the sill that I can admire while I make coffee, water wins, and I have three jars of it going now.