I want a plant i can live with without feeling overwhelmed. I was gonna post this in another sub Reddit that required a specific format before I realized I should shop around a little first. Kept the format because it’s better than nothing.
Monstera deliciosa (swiss cheese plant)
• watering routine – dont really have one….(see below)
• Light conditions (window direction or grow lights) – will be getting morning sun, 4-ish hours a day
• Soil and pot type (and whether it has drainage) – i dont know what to say to this. Dirt? Plastic pot? It has holes in the bottom?
• How long the issue has been happening – since i got it…(see below)
• Any recent changes (repotting, moving, fertilizing, pest treatment) – just brought it out of the spare bedroom, due to sw missouri winter, where honestly it didnt get the attention it probably should. Out of sight out of mind…
Ok, my problem with this plant is its just too much. Its about 3-4 feet wide in any direction, that doesn’t sound like much but it’s like it takes up half the room, when it’s on the porch, not much else is. Its an event every time i have to move it inside/outside. I have to clear a path, and i move it on my wheeled office chair, because it’s unsteady, always brushing up against something, it’s impossible to keep track of all the leaves at one time. I actually have to move my head when I look at it from left or right. I can barely lift it because I can barely get in there to pick it up. It’s just awkward.
What I would like for it is to be much more manageable, and I would like to take some cuttings and start some new plants. I would like a plant or two that I could keep inside and enjoy looking at and also have furniture.
Backstory: my uncle gave me this plant a couple years ago, a year and a half ago I guess to be accurate. He’s a big tropical plant kind of guy, build his own greenhouse that’s chock full of all kinds of green shit I don’t even know, and I think this just got to be too much even for him so he pawned it off on me. I really like it but I just don’t know what to do with it and it’s gotten to be where the inconvenience is starting to outweigh my fondness for it. As I stated earlier it’s been in the spare bedroom, I brought it in because of the winter, with the spare bedroom doesn’t have the best sunlight but it’s the only space that will accommodate it. I just moved it outside and watered it. I watered it occasionally in the spare bedroom, but like I said out of sight out of mind. It doesn’t have any dead stuff on it because I trimmed all that off before I took the pictures, but it was not inconsiderable.
I don’t wanna say I have a brown thumb, but I don’t have a real good track record of keeping stuff alive. The only thing I’ve grown successfully was sunflowers I planted last spring. And that was just a question of putting down enough seeds and watering them enough and keeping the rabbits off the shoots. Those did turn out fantastic, but I’ve also managed to kill two jade plants and a fern.
As you can see the bottom portion, the above ground root area, is just tangled nightmare. It’s got these big thick stems that grow sideways, it’s got a shit ton of those whatever you call them, root things that grow out of the stems, but it seemed like too much for the actual leaves that are growing.
So I need somebody who at least sounds like they know what they’re talking about to tell me what I should do. I want it to grow up not out. I want some successful cuttings. I watched some videos on YouTube, but none of their plants look like this. This is practically an Ent.
I don’t ask my uncle for help because he’s not the best teacher, he would end up just doing it himself and I wouldn’t learn anything.
Further pictures furnished upon request.
by Mister_Eleganza
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