10 Mistakes to Avoid When Growing Monstera (Swiss Cheese Plant)

I'm live. Is it good? Everything's good. Okay, sorry. Welcome. We're having some issues. A lot of technical issues trying to set up this live thing. I usually just like put the camera on and start talking, but before I was talking to nobody, which happens a lot in my life, but I think this is working. I cannot really tell, so I'm just going for it again. I'm going for it again. Nobody's here. Oh no, somebody's here. Someone, thank you. Hi, my name is Amanda. I hope you guys are great. I decided to go live today. Can you turn that down, Ethan? Thank you. Oh, is my live? Oh. I've decided to go live today to talk about 10 reasons why your Monstera is not getting bigger. I'm often asked this question, like why the heck, why isn't my plant not growing? It doesn't develop fenestrations. It just looks like crap. And I'm like, well, okay, I thought about it last night. I actually wrote a bunch of stuff down because I don't know what's wrong with me. I think I tell this stuff a lot. Hey, you like this microphone? I look really tiny. Look how small I look, right? It's weird. I thought about all this stuff, and the first thing I discovered, the biggest problem I think that people have is that they keep their plants in their pots too long, like their grow pots. I have two people watching me. This is really awkward. My son and my son's friend. You're all great, thank you. So yeah, so basically you can buy a plant in like a four-inch pot, a six-inch pot, and you might leave it in there too long, and what happens is that the roots, that's my second one, but the roots start developing so quickly, and then you have very limited soil, right? So if you have limited soil in your pot, the soil can't hold onto moisture that you can't hold onto. Will you guys come back? I like you here, hey. It can't, they can't absorb nutrients, so you have to transplant it, because unless you don't want your plant to get bigger. If you want your plant to get bigger, transplant it. If you don't, leave it in the pot, because it's a kind of torture, so don't. Just transplant it into a bigger pot. If you have a six-inch pot like this, I can't, hi, by the way, hi. I just like launched into this. I can kinda see it. Thank you for watching. I'm sorry it took so long to get this video going, but we were struggling to find all the stuff we needed. So anyway, if you have a six-inch pot, get an eight-inch pot. If you buy a plant in an eight-inch pot, get a 10-inch pot. So two inches larger in diameter is big enough to hold the roots and hold everything, and you won't overwater it, you won't rot the roots by adding too much soil. You know what I'm saying? Don't go too big. Keep it kinda small. So that's that. That's number one. Have a list. Number two is that your Monstera might get root-bound by staying in a small pot, by just growing so quickly if you're so lucky. And this, I'm gonna show you something. It's not a Monstera. It's a Dracaena. And I pulled it out, pulled it out, because I wanted to show you what happens when you just are lazy. When you're lazy and you forget. First of all, you see the dust? How much of you can see the dust? I'm lazy with this one. So I have not transplanted this Dracaena ever, ever. It's my fault. I'm not lazy. I just walk by it, it looks good, but it needs help. So I'm gonna make a little bit of a mess. I'm gonna make a mess. Is it okay to cut up the roots instead of a potting? You can totally do that. You can root prune your plant. If you root prune, you wanna prune some of the vegetation off too, balance it out. So you see how these roots are coming, they're growing out of the grow holes like that. You see that? That's a sign. That's a big sign that you need to be transplanting it. And then I'm just gonna, oh, I'm gonna make a mess. Hey, Ethan, can you get me a broom? He's not gonna do it. Here we go. I didn't, I did water it. I'm gonna pull it slowly. I feel like the lighting is messed up, but, okay, here we go. Ready for the reveal? Are you excited? You know what's in here? I haven't, that's not, yeah, those are a lot of roots. Those are a lot of roots. You can trim them off if you want. I try to like work them through the grow holes, the drainage holes. So there we go, you see that? Magic, magic. So these are healthy-ish roots. They're not root-rotted because I don't water it that much. Hi, there are lots of roots. Don't you love looking at roots? Don't they get you excited? They get me pretty excited. But this does not get me excited because I have to transplant it. So anyway, if your Monstera roots look like this, it's called root binding, root boundness. And then you can actually cut these roots to kind of facilitate new growth once you cut them. And then they'll start growing in a bigger container, which I don't have. And imagine this is a Monstera, your Monstera will get bigger because it has the room. So that's that, okay? That's the second one. I'm gonna look at my little notes. The third one, this is interesting because a lot of people don't really wanna fertilize their plants or they don't know how to, I'm covered in dirt. They don't know how to fertilize your plants. But if you don't, what happens is that they lack the nutrients. And this is something that I discovered a while back. Calcium, calcium is super important for your plant growth. It develops, it helps the plants develop cell walls. And without cell walls, it'd be us like without a skeleton. Would not be pretty. So, and also calcium helps absorb other micronutrients that your plants absolutely need to grow. So if you're depriving your plants of nitrogen, nitrogen is another nutrient that is essential for foliage growth. If you don't have nitrogen, you ain't got nothing. You got nothing. So this is a Monstera Stambliana and it's rather small and I probably planted it in too small of a pot. But what I need to do if I start seeing problems like light, light green yellowing leaves, usually like a lack of nitrogen or nutrients. So you'll wanna be able to make sure that you fertilize your plants for sure. And I'm gonna read you what the micronutrients are because they're important. And nobody really talks about them. They're like, oh, they're just micronutrients. That's important though, okay? So you don't mind. I'm just gonna read it. Hi, everybody. What is that? Forbidden beautiful noodles. Oh, you mean the roots? Okay, so your micronutrients are boron, okay? Copper, chlorine, did you know that? Did you know that chlorine? We need it. I didn't know that. Magnesium, which we know, we all need magnesium for, I need more magnesium and phosphorus in my diet. I was told, molybdenum, denim, molybdenum. I don't even know what that is. It's MO is the scientific. What is it called, Ethan? Like the little, like, forget it. Zinc, cobalt, and nickel. So when you're selecting, why is there a big shadow? When you're selecting a fertilizer, read the back, read what it's made out of and make sure it has the micronutrients. So if your plants, oh, I have one that I can show you. That's really horrible. Do you wanna see a horrible example of a Monstera? Say, just say yes, I'm gonna get it. It's right here, hold on, it's not very far. And I'm gonna like, it's big, it's big, it's big. So this big, bad, nasty thing. I'm like fighting with it. Say, come here, you. Okay, this one is like my problem child, Monstera. So what I need to do here is definitely I need to feed it because there are, except for obviously this, that's not going anywhere, this is getting cut off. But I can see a lot of yellowing on the leaves. I haven't fertilized it. I don't treat this plant very well, as you can tell. Not like my monster is behind me. So I'm definitely gonna give this some love. I'm gonna clean it up. I'm gonna clean it up today, as a matter of fact, because I brought it down from upstairs. Go over there. I'm literally surrounded by a Monstera, which is not a terrible thing. Okay, so that's that. And then there was something else. Oh yeah, here's another. This is obvious, right? If you don't have enough sunlight, if it doesn't have enough artificial light, if your plants are just living in a dark closet or in a dark space in your home, it's probably, I should talk into the mic, right? Probably gonna look like crap too. You're probably gonna have very long, leggy looking leaves. And when I'm talking about Monstera, I'm talking about all the Monstera. I'm not just talking about Deliciosa. I'm talking about all of them, like Peru. But this is my, no, Siam, I think. And okay, so my point is that you tend to get very, very long internodes, and the internodes are the long sections of vine between the nodes, right? So you'll see a struggling plant. So absolutely, it's essential that you give it enough light. And that's like over eight hours a day of indirect sunlight. The more, the better. That's what I'm saying. The more light, the better. I was driving the other day, and I looked at my hands, and they looked like a piece of paper, so white. I need sunlight. We all need sunlight. I couldn't believe it. I was embarrassed. I was trying to hide my hands. What's that? What is it? Oh, I can see the chat right there. Can you read it? No, I can't read it. But you, let's do it. After the video, after this ridiculous video, I'll stay on and just chat if you guys want to chat a little bit, just to hang out. Because it is Sunday, and I don't really have anything else to do except for plant care. Okay, so what was I saying? Yeah, so light. Please try to provide enough light for your plants. And if you don't have enough light, like windows, or enough windows, just rotate your plants around. So at least like once a week, they spend a day or two, or every two weeks, a day or two, just to give them a push. The other thing that I do with my Monstera is I put them outside in the summer. And this beautiful one here, I'm gonna move the camera. Is that, is that that? Feels like weird. This one got giant, but so big and beautiful. And then even the one over there, they just love it. They push a lot of growth out during that period of time. And when they do, it's great, because you don't have to worry so much about are they growing so much in the winter? Because they've already pushed out a lot of growth. And then you want to fertilize them if they're growing, okay? If they are growing inside your home, fertilize them. Because they need it. I have several types of Tradescantia. Can I plant them all in the same pot? Yes. That's the best, because it's like, it's like a Tradescantia party in a pot. It's a party in a pot. All right, so then, I had to take a sip. Thank you, Ethan, for my, remember you got me this cup? You use it all the time. I plant kid. Plant, plant, plant, plant, plant, plant, plant. Okay, so this is like critical. Ready for this critical thing? Temperature. Take your temperature right now, because I'm telling you, if it's too cold, forget. If it's too cold, forget about it. How's it sound? They don't grow, they don't grow. So ideally, optimally, you want to have daytime, daytime temperatures that are, what was it? 75, that's pretty high, right? It's pretty hot. We have our thermostat set for 68, and it's freaking hot. So you might want to have a little area in your, wherever you live, that you can, you know, up the temperature somehow, and have all the plants living together, so you don't waste money and heat and stuff, and you're not sweating, you know what I'm saying? You want to just like be comfortable, but your plants, in order to grow faster and bigger, they need warm temperatures during the daytime. And in the nighttime, they need, what was it? 65, maybe even less, 60. They like to cool off a little bit. They want to feel like they're outside. They want to feel like they're a part of nature, not a captive in your home. So make them feel at home by providing them with the care that they need. So temperature's critical. I don't even know if I wrote this down, probably. Oh, no, I don't think I did. But I'm going to just add this into temperature, humidity. They, okay, they can handle a little like drier air, but the wetter, the better, they say, in the plant world. No, they don't say that, that's weird. Sorry, my son's right here, he's making me nervous. I'm so gross. So yeah, but the higher the humidity, give it like 60%, 60, six zero. They love it, they'll just be like, their aerial roots are going to start growing out and be like holding on things and climbing up on poles. So yeah, increase the humidity too. Kimberly, you have, Kimberly, you have to have a note. Okay, somebody's chatting in there, but my plants, some plants are healthy. Some plants are not healthy. The one in the bathroom's not healthy. Depends, and you can turn your plants around if they're not healthy. Only if I listened to my own advice, I'd have such great looking plants. I have too many plants. The less plants you have, I think the better care they get, period, period. All right, so, oh, here's one that I don't usually talk about because it's a little too technical generally, but the pH levels. I used to think more about the pH levels when I used to have a gardening business, and now I stopped, but now I'm going to start thinking about pH, because it's really exciting to talk about pH, isn't it? So most indoor plants, especially the Monstera, likely like it slightly acidic. So you want to have, I think it's like around 6, 6.5 or something like that. And you can increase the, you can increase your pH by adding, there's a calcium carbonate. I wrote it down because I don't remember, or aluminum, yeah, aluminum sulfate is what I usually do for hydrangeas to get them to change color, but you can add those types of minerals into the soil to slightly increase it. You should test for your pH first before you start experimenting with it. So, but I would, what I would do is I would add like a teaspoon or a tablespoon to a gallon of water, and then you just add it in when you're watering your plants. That'll probably be okay. The less plant care you have, the better. Yep. Don't you think so? Just leave them alone sometimes. But anyway, for the pH, definitely, you want to have a slightly, slightly lower pH number. Lower means more acidic. So food for thought, right? Plant food for thought. There's so many plants around me, but you can't see them. They're like literally all over the place. How long is this video already? 15 minutes? Sorry, I thought it was gonna be like 10 minutes. What's that sound? The dog? Oh, that's you, okay. It's okay. It's a scratching sound, so it's okay. Okay, so here's one. Here's one that, again, from like my gardening experiences. Hi, Steve, good morning. I make everybody just deal with this stuff. Even like I'm trying to, oh, I can't, I can't focus. Okay, what was I doing? Oh, yeah, so this is what happens. If you plant your plant too deep, you plant it too deep. I'm gonna take this stilted bikini. If you plant it too deep, what happens is that you can actually like rot the trunks, rot the stems. And I used to think I was like, you're gonna suffocate the roots. No, because the roots go pretty deep. But you can actually damage the crown of your plant by planting it too deep, and that's not good. So try to, when you're planting your plants, try to keep, how can I show this to you? I'm gonna try to, this is, you see, like where you see these little nodules coming up in this little nodule there, this little crown area? You want that to be right above the soil line. I just looked at it to the light, and now like, oh, I can see your light flashes everywhere. But be cognizant of how you're planting your plant because too deep's not too good. Not too high, not too good. It's just right in the middle, okay? And I don't use a moisture meter anymore. I have one that I have permanently in a fiddly fig upstairs because I can never tell if it's dry or wet. It's doing great, though, I'm shocked. So moisture meters are okay, but I like my fingers. I use my fingers to stand right in front because I'm a dirty girl. Sorry, Ethan, you don't have to listen to this. I'm so sorry. I feel so bad that I like say these weird, gross things. You tune it out. Okay, so that's that. I don't remember what number this is. This is number eight. The basics, right? Back to the basics. Watering, over-watering your plants is gonna kill them. Over-watering your plants is gonna root the rots. Over-watering plants makes them get mushy and disgusting. Like, here's one. Like, that was over-watered and that was just dry and gross. So you have to monitor how you're doing it. The drier, the better. This one is very dry. All my Monsteras I keep very dry. And then I soak them evenly and let the water come out of the drainage holes and they're fine. I'm boring the pants off of these two young people because they're just like, what are you talking about? What do you want me to talk about? What's more exciting than this? Nothing. Are you? And they just woke up. Okay, so watering, critical, critical to get them to live. Just to live and to grow. What was I doing? Okay, the last one. The last one is fungus and bacteria. You need to monitor your plants for those because they're insidious. They're insidious and they can just take over and then all of a sudden you're losing leaves instead of gaining leaves. So clean your plants. Take care of them. Pick them up. Look at them. Inspect them because they tell you a lot. They tell you a lot just by this one saying, Amanda, you're doing a pretty damn good job. I'm like, I know, because I don't water you that much. And I fertilize you occasionally. Sorry, I'm such a freak. Look at this. And I clean the leaves on this because they're glistening pretty and beautiful. I did a good job on this one. I'm proud. I'm plant proud. So that's it. So in a nutshell, I'm gonna tell you. In a nutshell, this is what you do need to do to grow bigger monstera. I'm talking all of them. Every single monstera on the planet that you can get your hands on, this is what you do. Okay, so it all starts with the soil, right? Good soil, compost in the soil. Compost in the soil actually helps to increase nitrogen and calcium. Good, good soil is the most important thing that goes for gardening, indoor gardening. It's just, that's it. And then no root bounds. Don't be root bound. I know some plants, they say like it. I don't think they like it that much. Snake plants, I can say yes. For some weird reason, they can like it. But monstera, no. If you want them to get bigger, pop them into a larger pot. Nutrients, give them the nutrients. Give them complete fertilizer with all the micronutrients that we just discovered. So that's super important. And then pH between 6.5 and 7.5, if you're gonna do that. If you're gonna do that, just maybe helps, okay? They need everything. They need all the help because they're living in a little plant prison in a pot that you put them in. So it's up to you to do these things, to make them okay, all right? I'm not threatening you. I'm just saying like, I feel guilty sometimes. And then H, over eight hours, over eight hours of sunlight or artificial light a day. If you can do that, I'm kind of trying to do that. And temperature, 65 during, wait, no. So what did I say? 75 during the day, if you can. 70 is okay, 68 is probably okay. But the warmer, the better. And then 60 to 65 at night. You can go a little bit lower too, probably. But they want it warm. They grow when it's warm. And increase the humidity to 60%. Consistent watering, let it dry up between watering and clean, I'm sorry, I'm looking at my little list. Clean the dead leaves off. Take fungus off the top of the surface of the soil. Wash off mealy bugs. You can preventatively use neem oil. You can spray a diluted solution on the leaves to kind of, as a provalactive, provalactive, I can't say that word. You know, preventatively, and keep fungus away by not over-watering it. And then you're gonna have plants like this. Can you see this? Where is this leaf? Oh, there, it's blocking. Like that, like that big boy. Big bird, I don't know what it is that's big. They don't have a, they're not, they don't have a sex. They're just like plants. Okay, I think I should maybe stop talking. And thank you, I'm gonna answer some questions if you wanna talk a little bit. I hope that was helpful. Was it? Did you learn anything? You too? They learned something. That's okay. So, stay weird, oh, I know, sorry. Okay, anybody wanna talk? Like, just give me a call. I'll give you my son's phone number. Oh, please, voice keeps me calm. Aw, it keeps, my voice keeps you calm? That's, that's not what I hear around here. It makes people like run. Like, who left this on the counter? Why is the laundry not changed? Like, that's what they hear around here. I've been cleaning a lot lately because I'm really not working that much. So, making everybody stressed out. And like, not a lot of sinks. You can't have dishes in the sink overnight. That's my new rule. Laundry room, like, area, you can't put in, keep anything on the counter so I can fill the laundry. I'm like domesticated, domesticated, sorry. How do we clean the leaves? You can clean the leaves, you can use baking soda. Do you think about that? Like, that's kind of an idea. Or neem oil, or just like warm water. But warm water doesn't really get them shiny. If you want shiny leaves, you can use a little bit of neem oil. I don't really like to use neem oil that much because I feel like it's clogging the pores. So, I just use water and like an organic dish soap. You can use that. Just bought a Norfolk Island pine this morning. Nice. I thought I had one. Do I? I don't have one. Somebody took it, I think, and I never got it back. They're so pretty. Just don't put glitter on it. Don't paint glitter on it. Okay, it's not fair to the plants. Sometimes I just turn your voice, you know. Doing chores, I don't feel like I'm doing it. It's so sweet. Thank you. Okay, I'm embarrassed now. I'm gonna go. I think I'm gonna go because I don't like compliments at all. So, good luck with the cleaning. Regine, yes. Ready, you guys? Ready to clean? They're gonna leave. They're leaving. I already cleaned your room last night for you. Because I'm such a bad person. Okay, just ordered a bird of paradise. I have to re-watch videos on those plants again. They're really easy. Bird of paradise. The only word of caution is that they breed mealybugs. I think that's where mealybugs come from because no matter what, I always get them. I just was cleaning one upstairs because they're there. They live there. They're born on bird of paradise. Plenty of bright light. And give it more water than you think because they suck up a lot of water, I've discovered. So, that's it. Okay, I'm gonna go now. So, enjoy your day. Thank you so much. That wasn't much of a chat, was it? I'll see you soon. And thanks for helping me. You, too. I appreciate it. My little crew over there. All right, enjoy your day. Recently discovered that mealybugs below under a black light. Do you have a black light, do you think? I'm gonna try that. I'm gonna, what? Why would you not? I put a disco ball in your room, too. Did you see that? I decided to put the weirdest things in my son's, in my son's room. And he's like, what is going on here? Okay, anyway. Okay, it's 26 minutes, I don't know what I'm talking about. Fuck, bye. Bye. Bye, everybody, bye. Oh, that was fun.