Set Up Your Monstera For Success

I've just had this house plant delivered to my home and I need to get it in tiptop shape so it can be living its absolute best life I'll talk about why crooked leaves like this Spell catastrophe why this will eventually lead to its downfall and while fertilizing him would be a disaster so there's lots to get into to put this guy right so this fell is a monstera and I've already named him speckled JY and you'll see why in a sec he's not just any monstera no he's the Hipster trendy Type A monstera Tai constellation if you're not sure what the difference is then check out the leaves white Speckles and marbling hence the name I've christened him with speckled gym the white Speckles gives it the appearance of The Starry Night Sky and it originated from Thailand so we end up with Thai constellation genius anyway speckled Jim was introduced to the channel not long ago as part of my unboxing video from Amazon yeah that's right I got this guy off Amazon who knew you could buy exotic rare plants from the world's largest online my Marketplace evil cor I mean Amazon and be happy with your purchase there I've already given you two TV references for you to get your teeth into the first one to get them both correct in the comments will get the admiration you deserve from me and all your peers anyway I highly recommend you check out the video cuz I was expecting to be delivered a dog not literally that is but I ended up receiving this stallion ooh it's massive looks like plant this isn't a cutting is it this is a fully fledged PL I'm gushing because this was was sold as a rooted cutting for only £50 which is about $75 and as you can see he's much more than a cutting he's practically a fully fledged plant cuttings don't normally come with seven leaves and a well established root system after all so I've got a bargain but that doesn't mean there aren't a few things that need sorting out to make speckled gym happy the first thing you should always check when you've just bought a Monera or even if you're in the shop ready to part with your hard-earned money is to check how many plants you've actually got most of the time there will be at least two or three individual plants in there and this can present a problem or two first having more than one plant in the same pot means that things will get pretty crowded in there pretty quickly monsteras tend to have large chunky Ramon light roots and they grow like wildfire so having more than one in the pot won't be ideal and second it's going to be much more difficult to Train Your Dragon to climb up a support and supporting your monster will be the best thing you can do for it I'll show you why this is a problem when I get to supporting speckled Jim here later in the video so how can you tell how many plants you've actually got luckily this is dead simple because monsteras only grow a single dominant Vine with leaves shooting off it as you can see speckled JY is a Singleton if he was married with kids you'd see more than one stem coming from the soil if he was cohabiting the park then I'd be forcing him to Divorce by potting them all into separate pots luckily though I won't have to inflict that trauma on our speckled gym here coming up I talk about crooked step stems cages and while giving fertilizers is the worst thing you can do but first let me point you in a direction of my free plant problems troubleshooting handbook that you can download for free now it's got all the common plant problems you'll face like yellowing brown tips and mushy stems why they happen what you need to do to fix them in a simple guide that you can keep on your phone it's completely for free check out the details in the description now the first thing I noticed when I got this bad boy out of the box was the leaves and I'm not talking about how beautiful they are obviously I noticed that too but there are a couple of other things that caught my attention my inspector cluso senses tell me that Jim has been living in a spot that gets good light which is great the leaves are big well fenestrated and even have perforations in the middle of the latest Leaf all hallm marks of a plant soaking up the Rays on a sunlounger but looking at the plant from the front you'll notice that all the leaves are facing Any Which Way and this is something that needs correcting this suggests to me that speckled gym has been moved around a lot or light has been coming in from all sorts of different angles so we didn't know whether it was coming or going the poor fell it's my belief that a monstera as well as any other climbing plant for that matter looks so much better when facing in One Direction and to achieve that the light needs to shine on him from one source and be constant I mean check out the Peto on this Leaf doing the Twist and Shout isn't it and a sure sign the light source has been moving around like no one's business compare that to Mickey my other younger Monera that I've kept facing the light in the same direction since he was conceived and you can see just how crooked Jim is and I hate the way Jim's leaves face up as if the light was shining right down on him from directly above the leav should always be facing forward like Mickey here anyway all of this can be corrected it just needs me to pick a spot in my home and leave him alone and you'll see where I pick later the leaves should eventually start to all face the same way when Jim first arrived one of the first things I did was check out his private parts don't worry it was consensual I think anyway it's always a great idea to check the health of the roots of any new plant before going any further it's the engine room to the ship after all is there anything black and mushy that needs sorting out if this is the case and it's a new plant then i' send it back the seller shouldn't be selling anything with rotting roots and then is it significantly rootbound luckily for us speckled gym was in pretty darn good shape absolutely nothing to worry about with the roots a cheeky little tip for me is that a monster Monera can afford to be a little rootbound in fact if a monstera has tons of room to spread its wings or toes I guess then that's exactly what it will do grow roots like a madman and kind of forget about the leaves this just means new leaves take longer to come out so I wouldn't normally repot a monstera straight from the store but in this case you'll notice that Jim doesn't have anything to lean on to and I want to correct this so yes the best monsteras out there have a support system to help them grow big and strong it's how they grow in the wild after all and we should always mimic their natural growth habit as much as possible in our homes they latch onto surrounding trees in the jungle with their area roots and hoist themselves higher up the jungle to get a better view of the Sun and this is exactly what we should help them do grow vertically rather than horizontally you can support with anything you like as long as it's sturdy enough to support the plant Lee at kill this plant uses Tree Trunks and his monsteras are the best in the business I tried using bamboo sticks for money the monster in my bedroom and to be honest it's not really working out much too flimsy so for speckle gym here I'm going to use a moss Pole now this is a great idea for any monstera because once the plant starts climbing up it will grow its ay Roots into the Moss and strengthen itself in the process this turns your plant from spotty teenager to fully fledged responsible adult much quicker than without one the result bigger and bigger leaves with more and more fenestrations and who doesn't love that right as you can see though the only problem is that the stem is already hanging out the side of the pot so it's going to be tricky to get the plant and the Moss pole all in the same pot let's make up the Moss pole first and then see how we get on now I like to use plastic cages I buy from Amazon and it's just a case of filling it with spum moss from Cy Botanica the beauty of these is that they can easily be stacked to keep up with speckled Jim's growth so where does the Moss Bowl need to go basically on Jim's backside a monstera stem will have a front and a back the front is where the leaves face and the back is where the aerial roots are the aim of the game is to stick the pole up against the back so that the roots can grow into the Moss and jym can grow vertically look you can see a couple of the AA Roots have already started growing into the soil right let's pull Jim's trousers down and expose his private parts the soil he's been living in seems pretty decent but I want to upgrade him to a chunkier aroid mix specifically for monsteras from cyber Tanica I use my 10% discount code when buying this mix and you can too by following the link in the description to this video I've nabbed a slightly bigger part so that I can hopefully fit the Moss pole and the plan in but honestly it's going to be a tight squeeze for our gym but the beauty of moss bows is that once the roots start to grow into it the root bow at the base of the plant becomes a little less significant basically the pole becomes an extension of the partt so root growth in the partt should slow down that's the theory anyway so I'm putting the pole at the back of the pot and plonking gyms behind right up against it the AA Roots up against the pole and the leaves are facing away this is important as you can see it's a bit tricky to fit everything in plus Jim is kind of lurching forwards a bit but this should hopefully correct itself once he's settled in and facing the light properly we back fill the pot now and make sure everything is nice and snug and then give everything a fur drink watering deeply like this is important to settle the soil around the roots don't skimp here right I've got another crucial tip for you that will stop you killing your new plant before you've even had a chance to start enjoying him this doesn't just apply to monsteras but any plant you'll no doubt know that to get your popey to go all muscly and hyped up you need to give him his tenis spinach don't worry no spinach is required that's just a weird analogy for giving your plants some fertilizer I give all my plants house plant focus by growth technology whenever they're growing and it sure does make them sing but there is a warning here never give a new plant fertilizer for at least a couple of months never sorry mate you're going on a fast for 60 days don't argue with me it's for your own good the Crux of it is this I have no idea when speckled Jim's last meal was and what it was either he could have been given slow release pellets in the soil last week if I was to top him up with yet more he'll turn into the whale in no time and you know what that means don't you these gloriously green leaves with white Speckles will turn yellow yellow enough for me to get the sheffel May plants bin out again so that's Jim pretty much all set up now the last step is to find a spot in my home that gets bright light and leave him to do his thing there which is a bugger because getting high light in my home is near enough impossible thanks to my ciment so this means he'll be spending his days under this sansy grow bulb I've got plugged into this lamp and I use my 15% discount here too when buying this bad boy and you could do the same by going you knowwhere make sure you check out speckle Jim's first appearance on the channel by following the link here I'll see you next time

Channel: Sheffield Made Plants

Views: 38,770

Keywords: beginner plant care tips, houseplant care tips, how to keep plants alive, why is my plant dying, indoor plants, houseplants, monstera, monstera thai constellation, monstera albo, set up plants for success

Id: m25UvkT_lzQ

Length: 10min 22sec (622 seconds)

Published: Sat May 18 2024