I grew this plant as FAST AS POSSIBLE

these are my plant friends and this is me after I got as many fenestrations as I could on this monstera these fenestrations come with good care so I know I can get them as fast as possible on a new plant I only look nervous because I challenged them to grow the best plant they could in only 5 months on a $10 budget and we're about to get judged by a super secret guest I got to get the plant I'm going to be paying all of my time and attention to for the next couple months and today is just as good a day as any to tomorrow is as good a day as any to pick up my brand new monster signs of New Growth check starting to fenestrate check improperly labeled as a filodendron check I think I'll name you fill the monster I'm on my way back home and I'm about to do the two most important things that are going to win me this competition and the first thing is I'm going to do nothing too many people are in a rush to get home put their plant into new pot s the soil are drowned in water and none of that is necessary in fact the only time I'm going to take it out of the bag is when I'm spraying it down for pests I'll spray daily for the first week and then every few days after that coming from Ikea or another big box store this plant is all but guaranteed to come with pest if an infestation takes hold it's going to stunt the growth damage the leaves and then there'll be no way that I can win this competition speaking of winning my biggest threat in this competition is Christina from leafy luster I don't know if you know leafy luster but she makes the best plant videos on YouTube and somehow she managed to pick up this monster adenon ey for under €10 I need to step St up my schedule and get my plant exposed to more sun while my plant has been sitting right here far away from my window my goal is to get it to that table for about a week and then onto the floor closer to the window to speed up how much light it gets acclimated to in this video I gave advice to move your plant a few inches to about a foot every week to get your plant used to more light too much light too fast can give your plant a sunburn but I'm trying to speedrun fenestrations as fast as possible so I don't have time to play it safe and within a week of my plant being in this super Sunny Spot it's time for its first repot ignoring my own advice to wait for more roots to develop I'm going to be going up a small pot size from a 3 and 1/2 in plastic pot to about a 4in terracotta and to help with the plant not having that many roots I need a really chunky soil mix I already have my typical aoid mix with soil orchid bark and perlite so obviously I have to add a ton more orchid bark and this super super thick Pate I'm talking as thick as possible and where can you get such big perlite listen you're going to have to go to a local hydroponic store look up one close to you and it's probably in a weird part of town and you're probably going to have to walk down a really long hallway and assume you're in the wrong place but you're not it's going to get weird and yes you are going to have to leave your house because they don't really ship to you and maybe their website doesn't work so good but trust me this bag of perlite cost me $40 and it's going to last a lifetime so on this first repot I'm adding a climbing pole I I want my plant to climb as early as possible that way I can maximize the size of the leaves and its penetrations and while light is the most important thing an unstable plant that has no support will eventually lose its size and fenestrations I'm using a wooden plank for now and this really wide surface should help fill the monster latch on while I would usually wait 3 to 6 months before I start fertilizing a plant I'm going to start right away with an organic liquid fertilizer if you are going for speed a chemical fertilizer will technically be absorbed absorbed Faster by the plant but because I have 4 months left in this competition I think that gives me enough time to develop a healthy soil biome which will give me better results in the long run and since I haven't seen any pests I'm actually going to relax on my pest care routine things have been going really great I'm seeing bigger Leaf size more fenestrations and now I just need to use every highlevel strategy that I know to get more growth out of Phil so this is something that I learned from my friend Ashley from gardening in Canada and and that's pH balancing your water Jeff from everything plants has been using this strategy for a while and he's seeing really great results many tropical plants actually prefer a soil that's slightly acidic so we're talking about levels between 6 and 6.5 if you pH balance your water to that level over time you can get your soil more in line with that range when your soil is more in line with the correct pH the plant will actually absorb nutrients much more efficiently honestly with everything I've been doing I think that this new Leaf coming in is going to have some inside fenestrations I'm super excited to see this thing unfurl and uh oh oh it's the same size it's the same all right it's time to get serious fol your spray that's right I'm fertilizing the underside of my leaves repot it's time to upgrade I don't care if the roots aren't ready it's time to move to the sunniest spot in my house move over Will Smith this is fil the monster's house now but seriously I can't figure out why the leaves are coming out at the same size it was on such a good growth trajectory and everything was going fine [Laughter] [Music] then maybe checking in with leafy luster will help me feel better hey Christina what's up I'm fine thanks nice t-shirt by the way what's up I'm only calling to brag actually check out how huge my plant has gotten in just the last couple months okay it's got these huge leaves a new one coming in how's yours going by the way oh hang on I'll get it tada this is it do you see this it looks so good I found this Driftwood or bark thing and it looks so good it fits my vision so well and ever since I got rid of spider it's amazing it looks so good she's so talented how does she keep doing this I can't believe this are you still there is your camera Frozen I need something came up I have to go okay bye hey so I had this really great idea to find this piece of Driftwood and it was actually my idea the entire time and part of my plan all along for Phil the monster I spent the last month of the competition cleaning and curing it to be ready for my last repot all the final update pictures are in and they're ready to be sent off to our super secret judge since this is literally the last day I don't even have time to let this final Leaf unfurl I just have to snap my pictures and send it in for judging I not sure what to expect here I literally could not sleep I was like a kid on Christmas I don't know it's I'm excited who was the judge hey guys I'm Harley from the YouTube channel Harley G thank you so much for the invite I'm really excited to see the plants and let's get into it this poos what do I say they kept this plant in quite a big Nursery pot with this Moss pole so you know what that tells me that they have hope that this plant is going to one day take over this Moss pole and I respect that uh I wish you had told us who was going to be judging uh Harley G I would have just dropped out I don't need to be uh she doesn't need to see my dead pathos right off the bat this monstera deliciosa is to me I find it really impressive that this plant grew such larger leaves compared to those first couple in the before photo so clearly it was well taken care of I really like the piece of wood that was used as a steak to help the plant grow those larger leaves it has a really cool shape to me cool staks like this like really set a plan apart part I just think swapping out that plastic saucer for something maybe a little bit nicer like a thrifted crystal dish or something a bit cleaner looking would have really been the cherry on top for this plant but overall it is really really beautiful I'm realizing that she does not like my cheap plastic little saucer so next time I'll really went in on your saucer yeah I've got so much to say about this alocasia Silver Dragon it looks like this plant was purchased on clearance from a big box store clearly this plant is a lot better off now really wonderful job here I just wanted to find the saddest plant I could find that I felt was still salvageable but it eventually started producing some nice leaves it's still pretty small but it came back to life like allocation's like to and it's okay I've been trying to figure out how many leaves this philad dendrin gloriosum has pushed out in the 5 month span it's looking like 4ish leaves and impressively they've like tripled in size from the original photo clearly they've been taking very excellent care of this plant and have put a lot of time and effort and energy into it I decided to take a risk I'm going to put it in a bigger than pot a bigger pot than I should be putting it in just with really well- draining soil so lots of perlite um sunniest spot in the house I could find so it was nice and warm and it's done really well another bold Choice using an alocasia cpra it looks like this plant was able to grow 4ish maybe five leaves the coloration of the plant looks a lot better than the beginning photo if you ask me and that tells me that the plant is really really happy and thriving in the environment it's in and it just keeps putting out leaves that are exactly the same size as the last leaf and I'm like going to strangle this plant I'm like please a bigger Leaf it's for a YouTube video Monera adoni wide form wow I'm so impressed with this person's choice of cork bark and how the monstera ad andoni has started to grow up it in just the 5 months and where this plant wasn't n as immature as a lot of the other participants I do still find it quite impressive that they were able to make a plant climb up a situation like this I I think this whole thing looks awesome at the Garden Center they have like a aquarium section there was this huge spkk it's Giant and I was really happy to find it now getting into placings I got to say this was a really hard decision because there are a lot of factors to take in third place has to go to monstera deliciosa Second Place belongs to philad dendrin gloriosa and first place goes to monstera ad and Soni and I'm a little bit jealous of how fun this seemed so this is me formally inviting myself to participate in round two that's it for me today thanks again and bye yay check the comments for the full judging video as well as all the videos that my friends made for this friendly competition let me know who you'd like to see compete with us next time

Channel: Kill This Plant

Views: 131,719

Keywords: monstera deliciosa, swiss cheese plant

Id: AXGhZJvdqNg

Length: 11min 4sec (664 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 18 2023