Philodendron Giganteum Variegata Talk & Update

Oh, look at these two. Hey Turbs. You wanna say hi? No? You done? Turbo. Is it breathing? Yes, it is. Okay, good boy. That was unusual. Hey, what's up garden friends? Jeff here. How's everybody doing? The wind's gonna pick up right when I hit record, huh? I don't mind it. Hopefully it doesn't interfere with the audio. How's everybody doing? Hope you're doing well. I'm great. I mentioned in the last garden tour while I was going around, looking at the plants and picking some things out that I have this philodendron here that needs to be repotted, or so I thought. That was going to be the topic of the video was just repotting and just having a little bit of a chat with this plant because this was a plant that I got in a video almost two years ago. It's a fairly significant thing. So I thought that I would bring everybody along for the updates on the plant, which we'll still do here. The repot part though, I'm on the fence. So instead we're just gonna, this is just a little chatty plant vlog while I basically think out loud as to what to do with this plant. We can see there are some issues here. Some yellowing on the foliage. It's the two lowest growth, so I'm not worried about it. There's no mushiness on them. As long as they're not mushy and it hasn't progressed rapidly, which it has not, I don't worry about it too much. The philodendron giganteans tend to be plants that will hold onto their foliage for a pretty long time. Also, I made sure to like clean the table off so we'd have a nice view in the background. I forgot that this is like the coy of the plant world. You have to be above it to appreciate how pretty those leaves are. That's fine, whatever. Nevermind the mess in the chairs that I just went, so the table would look more clean. Let's start with how's the plant been doing? First, I'll roll the footage from when I first got it and have a better look at it. I remember when this came in the mail that it was an on the fence sort of thing. It had sat in the mail for a while, there wasn't much to it, and it was one of those things where I was like, eh, it's a philodendron, just gonna have to hope for the best, but wasn't positive what was going to happen with it. This was one of my few wishlist plants. I don't, there aren't a lot of plants where I'm like, oh, I really want that. But the variegated giganteum has always been high up there. So when I got it, I was really excited about it. And then here it is almost two years later, not quite. And it's done a good amount of growing. Not quite what I would expect, but I would say okay. I'd give it a B as far as growth is concerned. Maybe a B minus. The first year that I had this outside, so the following year when I brought this back outside for the summertime, I stuck this plant way back in the shade because I was just so paranoid that I was going to scorch the foliage on here. And then when I took it inside for the fall, had it in a window that was getting a ton of sunlight and it was just like, oh, it was absolutely loving it. So it did get slowed down by not getting much light that first summer outside, but it was also still kind of a puny, pathetic little thing last summer. And I just didn't want to overdo it. And this, I mean, it was right back there. You can see the plants over here get plenty of sun. The impatiens and caladiums and everything, they're growing, but it was right behind those. I think that it was enough light, but just kind of like enough light to keep it going, but not necessarily growing. You know what I mean? And then that winter, I put it much closer under the grow lights, didn't have any scorch, any issues with it. It's just been an overall solid plant. Philodendron hasn't been fussy about watering. I tend to let them grow more dry than wet because, you know, being too wet with a philodendron is just the kiss of death. I'd rather them be on the more dry side. And when they're outside during the summertime, it's very, very humid. So I don't tend to have to worry about the water as much with them. Where I've kept this outside this year is a spot that gets bright, filtered, morning light. And there are misters and micro sprinklers in the area. So there's a good amount of humidity and moisture that these get hit with about four times a day. And I think that that's probably what's attributing to the conundrum I'm having here. Do you see it? We talk a little bit about the characteristic of this plant first and maybe see what's going on here. So the giganteums. This is a philodendron that is a climber. They get very, very, very large, but they tend to start off for a long time as really big bushy plants that look almost like an alocasia. There's normally an establishment period where they'll get nice and big before their stem will start to move out and want to climb. This one though, still a baby. This should be like probably 20 times the size before I'm seeing this, at least typically. And it's putting out aerial roots, which means that it's ready to grab onto something and climb and you can see what the stem's doing down there. And that's why this has turned into more of a let's just think out loud kind of video here and talk about what to do with the plant. Typically, when we see these aerial roots coming out of the stem, that means get it onto some sort of structure that those can grab onto so it can climb. I'm not ready for that yet though. Apparently the plant is. I'm assuming because of all the moisture from the misters and everything in the area where it's been that that's why it's reaching out and doing that at such a smaller size. It's potentially become very, very root bound in here, which is a good thing. Philodendrons to an extent like to have some tightness around their roots that'll help get them climbing. That's true with most climbing aeroids in general, right? Like I said, I don't wanna. I wanted this plant to be one of those big bushy ones in a pot before it started to climb something. Once these start to climb, you gotta have a lot of space for them. I figured I'd have several years before we got into that sort of situation, but I don't know. We might be there. It doesn't feel, not that I can squeeze the pot and tell if it's root bound because it's a hard pot, but from tugging right here, if this were root bound, I would expect this entire root mass to lift up, which it doesn't. So I don't think that it's necessarily ready to be repotted though I don't think it would hurt. A lot of weeds in here. All that stuff I'm saying about how I'm not ready for it to climb, really that's irrelevant, right? Doesn't matter. If the plant's ready to climb, then that's what it should start to do. There's another problem though. I did a really dumb thing. I don't know why I did this. I've been growing orchids and aeroids things with really sticky roots for almost my entire life. And it's just a general rule of thumb, like good idea to not put them in containers that aren't either glazed on the inside or plastic. The reason for that being that the roots will adhere right to the side of the container. Clear this out. You can sort of see what I'm talking about down in there. So this isn't going to just lift out of here nice and tidy. In fact, I was planning on repotting it into this pot right here, which I also had changed my mind on because one, it's bigger in the middle or down low than it is up top, which will make it more difficult to repot in the future. And the inside isn't glazed. And it wasn't until I thought about how the inside wasn't glazed that I went, uh-oh, I don't think the inside of this one's glazed. Typically when I'm trying to decide if it's time to repot a plant, I don't necessarily like to go by the every other year, every two year, three year rule that comes with some of the house plants. Like with this one, there are a lot of sites that will say to only repot these every three years or so. That's fine and all. That's just kind of like with watering, how there are a lot of generalizations. I prefer to look at the plant and just think about how's it growing? Is everything okay? But this isn't a progressive thing. It's probably from moving it outside in the springtime would be my guess. We had a pretty cool spring and maybe shocked it when I moved it outside. Cooler temperatures can lead to yellowing leaves and some problems there. So that's more than likely what happened with that or, or possibly lack of nutrient. Gonna start to drop the older foliage to support growth to come out from the middle to keep the plant growing. It's gonna pull those nutrients back into the system and use those for the new growth. Can't say if that's happening or not because I can't talk to the plant, but I can think about how I've been caring for it. The plant gets fertilized about, I'd say every other week with a quarter-strength all-purpose fertilizer. I add earthworm castings into the mix about two or three times a year. I think the last time I put some in there was May. Sometimes I'll add a little bit of compost, which I'm pretty sure I did this time around just because it was drying out a little bit too quickly. Don't necessarily think it's a nutrient thing, but that's certainly a possibility. I mostly look for stalled and slowed growth with the plant. That's when I decide, is it time to repot the plant? Am I having a really hard time keeping the plant hydrated? Am I having to water it far more than I used to? Usually means it's time for a repot. Look to see if there are any roots coming out the bottom, which there are, but not a lot. Not to the point where I feel like the plant's root bound. And is the plant fitting into its character? Are the leaves coming out the right shape and size that they should be? That can mean that it's time to repot the plant because there just aren't enough nutrients down in there or it's being under-fertilized. There can be a lot of things that cause that. But with philodendrons and the thematophyllums, typically when they become really root bound, the size of the leaves can shrink down if it's like severely, overly root bound. That's more true of the thematophyllum bipinifidum, the philodendron bipinifidum. You know what I'm talking about, split-leaf philodendron that's now a thematophyllum. A plant that likes to be root bound, but they also like a really large root space. That could be the case here, right? Maybe this just needs some more space for its roots to grow. If the plant had another, I would say, six inches or so of that stem in there, I'd just cut it. I'd cut a big piece off and restart that in a separate container. And then I'd just let what's left down below do whatever it wants to do. If it wants to put off offshoots, that's great. If not, it's been nice knowing you. And then back to the climbing. With philodendrons, epipyrenums, really, I think the majority of climbing aeroids, once they start to climb, that's usually when you'll start to see the larger foliage. They'll have smaller leaves when they're wandering around establishing a root system and then they hit something that they can climb up. Once they reach a certain height, they'll start to put out much larger leaves. So it's also totally possible I could put this onto a structure where these aerial roots can adhere to something, that that's going to change the size of the growth. Start to get larger growth out of the plant. And I think that that's probably the way to go since the plant is telling me that that's what it wants to do, even though I'm not ready for it. I'm just like, come on, it's too early for that, stop it. That's also why this video is, let's talk about the things that I think about when I'm debating what to do with the plant, instead of actually doing the thing with the plant. That's because I do not have a structure right now that I would want to put this on. For the time being, I'm just going to go in and cut off those yellowing stems, yellowing leaves, that is. Doesn't need them. They're yellowed out. They're not doing anything for the plant. No reason to keep them there. The clippers were clean. No worries. They're actually brand new. It's the first time I've used them. They did still have a dip in some alcohol just to make sure that there wasn't any contamination on them. So that's where the, welcome to my brain. I also mentioned in that garden tour about how I have to remember, I don't have to rush to repot the plants quite as much as I used to, because that garage where I keep my plants during the winter time, I have a new heater, a new humidity system, you could say, where I can repot during the winter time. The day lengths are long enough with the grow lights, the temperature, everything's still good, but there's just something better about doing it when they can have a few months outside, as long as you'll have some place where it's humid, which I do. It hasn't been very humid this summer, but I think that it will adjust more quickly to a repot if I can get that done in the next couple of weeks. We'll have several weeks until it needs to get moved inside instead of it having to establish itself indoors where there's not the same conditions. I'm not gonna say they're not ideal, but outdoors is just always better. And I really like this pot. I don't wanna have to break it to get those roots off, which I won't do. Chances are a lot of them will come off on their own. This is a sturdy enough plant where I think if I have to tear those roots off the side of the container, it should be just fine. I wanna put the plant through that if I don't have to. If it's not time yet, then I don't really think that I should. But looking at the plant, I wouldn't you say it's time to go ahead and give this a repot. It's been almost two years in this container, even though there was like nothing on this as far as roots are concerned two years ago. I'd say that that has to have filled this thing out well enough since there are some roots coming out the bottom. And you saw those yelling leaves and the smaller foliage up top, right? And those aerial roots. Wasn't ready for that. Figured it would get at least probably a couple feet tall before I would start having to deal with that, but here we are. It's a sign that the plant said, okay, my roots are confined. They're growing on things and there's a lot of moisture. Where it's been hanging out. So it's reaching out and trying to grab onto things and I should let it do that. There it is. There's the two-year update on the Philodendron giganteum. If you've been around that long, maybe you remember when I got this plant. If you've been around that long, you'll remember the significance of the plant and why I was really happy to get it and why I would like to, of course, take the best care of it. Oh, and it's a good thing this was meant to be more of a vlog than an actual structured how-to video because I have not kept things in order. Another thing when is it time to repot the plant is what's going off the soil. Has the soil started to break down? Soil, I should say. The soilless mix that's being used. And this, you can see from the darkness on it, the density I can tell when I push down on it. It's more firm than I would like for Philodendrons. That's another good reason that whether I think the plant's ready for it or not, it would still be a good idea to get it into a fluffier mix to avoid that risk of the plant being overwatered. I also really find it interesting how we'll have a set of rules for plants. As far as the growth habits and what to expect from them and then you'd get thrown a curveball like this. I think it's a good thing to talk about because it represents how different conditions of all the different factors talked about in this video can influence the actual growth habit of the plant. I would say that this plant is happy because it's, I mean, it's been growing. I think it would have grown more quickly with more light, but I've been giving it more light this year and it has picked up its speed. It started to thicken up there in the middle and it's got those aerial roots. So I guess go ahead and get this onto something that can stick those two and start climbing it. And I would imagine once those aerial roots grab onto something, they can start to climb. It'll probably start putting out much bigger leaves, right? Wouldn't you think? That's what logic would tell us with this plant and climbing aeroids, but who knows? It's also kind of young to be doing this. Okay, that's all. Thanks for hanging out. Comment down below, tips, tricks, suggestions, always appreciated. Have you experienced this with your Philodendron giganteum? It's not a horribly unusual thing. Like I said, it just depends on the conditions. This plant got the conditions to say, okay, it's time to start climbing, even though it's not to the typical size you would see from this plant for it to want to start to climb. And yeah, we'll get this repotted here in a week or two once I get some structures in place and need to order this stuff to make a nice pull for it. Anyways, hope everybody's doing well, having a great day and a great life and everything's just growing absolutely beautifully for you. And of course, as always, and most importantly, everybody, keep on growing. Bye-bye.