Alfredo

I want to share my journey with the first monstera I got back in Sep-2020 from a local store in Bavaria. It came with the name tag “Alfredo” and I call it Alfredo ever since.

I pretty much had no idea how to care about monsteras and just let him be. Although the shoots grew in all directions and it looked a bit messy I loved this plant.

After moving to a new home I decided to stick him to a coco pole in 2021 which he really seemed to like. I still used normal soil mixed with some perlite and used fertiliser every now and then. Alfredo never got huge fenestration or anything but I loved it.

Mid/late 2023 I started using aroid mix instead of soil and tied it to a self made moss pole. For aroid mix I used pine bark, coco chips, leca, coco peat, perlite and seramis. For the moss pole I used meshed wire and sphagnum moss from chile. And here the drama begins.

Alfredo started to decline in growth and the leaves started to look sick. I never thought of pest until I noticed thrips. After I noticed more and more plants got thrips I decided to send all infested plants to heaven because I could not see another way to overcome the thrips. But killing Alfredo? I could not!

So I decided to cut him down in Apr-2024. Luckily I managed to preserve the top part of the main shoot and placed it in a bucket full of water together with 2 other parts of the main shoot. All other parts of Alfredo incl the root system went to the trash.

After all this struggle I inspected the ingredients of my aroid mix. I noticed that the pine bark which came in a huge bag was a bit wet although it was stored dryly. I never found out where the thrips came from. Maybe it was the pine bark which was infested. So I bought new pine bark at my local nursery and started all over again with the cuttings in Summer 2024.

Today I took a photo of Alfredo. He is facing south with plenty of indirect light. He is planed in the same aroid mix from above attached to a moss pole made of sphagnum. I use fertiliser once a week and only soak the moss pole (bottle up side down on top of the pole). Big Alfredo loves his place and gifted me with two big, fenestrated leaves. A third one is unfurling right now.

I have a more or less daily routine going through all my plants and looking for new growth, if the plants need anything and of course looking for pest. Here and there I had some thrips on one of my ivy arums and spider mites on my alocasia but I can handle it with neemoil, quarantine and love.