Found a weird trick for getting my monstera to put out fenestrations faster

I was getting frustrated with my monstera just putting out solid leaves for like 8 months even though it was in bright indirect light near a south window in my apartment in Portland. Tried watering less, more, different soil mixes, nothing worked. Then I saw a random YouTube comment saying they wrap a damp sphagnum moss pole around the aerial roots and suddenly the leaves start splitting within weeks. Figured it was BS but tried it with a $8 bag of sphagnum from a local nursery and now I've got 3 new leaves with fenestrations after just 5 weeks. Anyone else found something that sounds dumb but actually works for getting splits faster?

3 comments

3 Comments

val_taylor14d ago

Nah, just do one root and it takes off.

wadepalmer6d ago

Yeah you got me thinking about that "physical support" part. A buddy of mine tried the one root trick last summer and his monstera went crazy. He had this one sad little aerial root that was barely touching the pole, nothing fancy, and within a month the leaves were twice the size of the ones on his other plant that he left alone. He was so annoyed because he spent all this time trying to train every single root to the pole on the first one and it did nothing. But the one he just tossed on the pole with a single root got huge fast. I think the plant just knows when it can latch onto something solid and that triggers the growth response. The humidity around the stem probably helps too but the physical connection seems to be the real secret.

olivia_barnes9714d ago

Wait, did you wrap the moss pole around just one or all of the aerial roots? My monstera is throwing out like 4 roots that are all tangled different directions and I'm not sure if I need to connect every single one or if that's overkill. I'm genuinely curious if it's more about the humidity around the stem itself or if the plant really needs the physical support to trigger the bigger leaves. Seems like everyone has a different theory on this and nobody actually checks which part of the plant is responding. What's your guess on why that works versus just misting the air roots regularly?