I Rescued My Overwatered Monstera Deliciosa (Swiss Cheese Plant) - Symptoms And Solutions

hi guys it's andrew here from smartgardenguy.com and this is a video about over watering your house plants and in particular over watering monstera deliciosa or swiss cheese plants i wanted to make this video because i've actually got two monstera here and one has been over watered and the other one hasn't and interestingly they've both been growing in the same room in the same conditions and looked after by myself so you would sort of wonder how on earth have i over watered one and not the other and we're just going to go through some of the symptoms that this plant has what i have done what i've done wrong and how i'm going to try and fix it so first of all this is my overwatered monster it's quite a small plant and as you can see it's got one yellowing lower leaf now this plant has had about five or six lower leaves that have turned yellow and i have progressively pruned them off as they've just become completely yellow you can also see it's got one new leaf and this leaf does not look desperately healthy it has got brown tips on it so if you were looking at this plant you would you might think right it's got a yellow leaf and the most common cause of yellowing leaves is over watering it's not the only caused by any means but it is the most common cause you immediately think could this be another water plant and then you might look at this new leaf and see the brown tips and think well brown tips surely that's not over watering surely that's under watering or possibly a sign of low humidity and of course the answer is no both of these symptoms in fact these symptoms together are a real warning sign that your plant's being overwatered and the reason why it happens is an over watered plant um develops unhealthy roots so the roots languish in soggy soil they develop root rot they're no longer able to function as they normally would the plant makes a decision to shed some of its foliage in an effort to survive so it picks the older lower layers as candidates and they turn yellow and die favoring the younger more healthy full age as the roots aren't absorbing enough water some of the younger more sensitive foliage you can't get the amount of water that it needs to be healthy and the parts of the leaf that are most sensitive to a lack of water are the leaf tips so that's why the leaf tips go brown because the roots aren't absorbing enough water for it because they've got root rot and so these bits die i think this the rest of this leaf is going to be okay eventually it's not it's not going to recover fully by any means but it's still doing a job for the plant so we're not going to get rid of this um so why why has this happened you know as you can see i've got you know this plant's developed but this plant has been growing in the same room as it in the same conditions and i've treated them exactly the same so why is this one absolutely thriving this one's produced loads of new leaves and this one is absolutely languaging well there's a few reasons so reason number one is the pot um this smaller monstera is in a larger pot relative to the size of the plant so uh there's more soil for the amount of plant material so when i water this it takes a long it takes a longer time period for the plant to use up the water in the soil and for the the soil for the water to evaporate from the soil and dry out and be ready to be watered again so part of the reason might be that this plant's drying out more quickly this plant's drying or sweat more slowly and maybe i'm watering the two on a bit of a schedule and this one's being relatively over watered the other reason of course is um you know this plant has so much more foliage so it's using a lot more water this is a young plant and it's using less folate the third reason might be that the choice of soil for the plants this smaller plant i only got maybe four or five months ago and it arrived just in pure paint so it did and pete is very uh good at absorbing uh moisture holding water but it's not a very uh very good draining potting mix but i didn't repot the plant i just left it in the paint i kind of thought it would be okay my other monstera here is powdered in an aroid mix of i think there's some cocoa choir bark chips pumice pearlite and activated uh charcoal there might be a bit of lack in there as well and so that's a much better draining potting mix so it doesn't tend to produce soggy soil it retains a wee bit of water for the plant to stop drying out but excess water drains out nicely uh this plant um unfortunately um knew that the soil was another factor in terms of why it got over watered so what have i done with this plant to try and save it well first thing i did was i took it out of its pot i examined the roots i used sterile pruning shears to prune off any affected roots and there were a few roots that were showing signs of root rot the next thing i did was i repotted it into an aroid poly mix so that it drained much much better i then just watered it very very lightly to stop it from uh you know showing further signs of underwatering um and i have over the last month or six weeks been very careful to err on the side of caution with watering of this plant now despite that the roots are damaged and the plant is struggling so there has been progressive yellowing of more leaves since i've tried to save this plant and that's to be expected the root or the plant isn't focused on the foliage it's focusing on survival so what's going to happen to this plant is if i treat it right the roots slowly slowly are going to stabilize and then it's going to start growing new roots and then eventually it'll start growing new foliage the foliage that's damaged currently won't recover but if i'm careful i think i can save this plant what could i do to prevent this happening again well there's a few things number one i want to make sure that the plants growing in good temperatures so temperatures that are comfortable for it and if you grow your house plants in cooler temperatures the plant will use less water and there'll be less evaporation of water from the soil so this will cause the soil to stay wetter for longer i could re-pot this plant into a terracotta pot which is porous and that'll mean that some of the water in the soil will seep through those pores and out of the soil after watering and it'll help the soil to dry out quicker i could pot this plant in a smaller pot so that again the soil dries out quicker after watering really importantly i should make sure that it's getting plenty of light because plants need light to make energy to grow so if you have your monstera in a dark location it's it's not going to be actively growing it's just going to sit there it's not going to use as much water and it's going to be at increased risk of rip rot so i could move this closer to the window give it more light give it higher temperatures and put it in a smaller pot put it in a porous pot and of course crucially only water this plant when it needs uh to be watered so really dig my fingers into the soil to make sure that the soil has dried out efficiently before watering it check how wet the soil is through the drainage holes at the bottom feel the weight of the pot to see get an idea of how heavy it is how much water is left in the soil and air on the side of caution only water when you're sure that it needs water monsteras are quite capable of surviving a wee bit of drought so definitely better to take it easy with the watering so thanks very much guys for watching i just wanted to um highlight this interesting situation where i've got two similar plants um one running in the problems and the other one not despite being grown in exactly the same place by myself and i hope you've enjoyed this hope it's been useful and please if you have any questions ask them in the comments section if you've liked this video please press the like button and please consider subscribing to the channel for plenty more houseplant care videos coming up soon

Channel: Smart Garden Guide

Views: 39,432

Rating: 4.9198933 out of 5

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Id: _V9IDMrRNeo

Length: 8min 52sec (532 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020