Hi everyone!!
Someone local to me on Facebook was giving away this monstera and so I decided to grab it. It was in a very small pot for its size so I went to Home Depot and got a new pot to replant it. When trying to replant it, the plant would NOT budge. It was stuck. We tried for such a long time to get it out before deciding we just needed to hammer the glass pot. To my surprise, this is what we found.
THESE ROOTS!!!!!!
If anyone has any advice how to get this plant back to great health, pls let me know!!!
by Worried_Finding_9543
11 Comments
commenting because im in the same situation and would like to know the answer as well
Massage the roots a bit and loosen them up… you can use a bit of force, no need fo soft hands. Then put it in well draining soil (1 part soil 1 part perlite 1 part orchid bark) and a bigger pot. That could go up 2 sizes. Then water thoroughly and put in your brightest window. And don’t water again until the pot is more than 50% dry.
Check for pests, spray with insecticide, cut any dead leaves off. Keep away from other plants for a bit
I highly recommend [clear nursery pots](https://amzn.to/47VCZq2) to avoid having to break a pretty planter in the future!
Deserves a cross post to [r/wheresthefuckingsoil](https://www.reddit.com/r/wheresthefuckingsoil/s/W2qpVoRWhT)
Holy freaking ramen noodles!
Tbh I’ve always just put the root ball on a chair or the ground and just shot a jet stream of water at it to break them up. Massaging them loose and maybe using a chop stick at times to separate tighter sections. You ARE gonna break some roots and that’s okay lol.
In the same situation and I’m scared to look lol
Wowza that is a beast
🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜
Dayum
Buried deep in my profile is a very similar looking thing. I’ve repotted a few like this over the years. Not something I will ever do during the winter. In summer, I’d soak it in a bucket of water for a day then get comfy for the afternoon and blast it with the hose. Sharpest setting. Work them apart. You’ll break a few but that’s ok. Choose one or two plants to keep and repot into the chunkiest mix you can make. Give away the rest. Do it early enough in the season so it’s got a couple of months of good conditions (leaving it outside of course) to recover. One that I did stayed dormant for two years before it started growing again. Now it can’t be stopped.
This is why i use cheap plastic pots
It may sound crazy, but you can lay the whole plant on its side and chop off the bottom 2-3 inches of roots with a huge knife. It will still have plenty of roots to do it’s job, but now you’ll have room for some soil.
Molly’s mix ‘for aroids’ is a great substrate of you want to spoil it.
Moss poles from rousseau or some similar style are also really fun and it’s easiest to set those up whilst repotting.
Also adding leca in the bottom never hurts, but may be unnecessary. I’ve had similar roots on my Monsteras and it appears they’re able to slurp up so much they’ll never get root rot anyway.
I did all of the above with my last two repottings and they’re happy plants!