Jan 5 2020 vs Oct 26 2020 💚
One foot (she's 4 ft tall now!), 10ish months, and five leaves later I'm still high-key obsessed with this monstera. This thing has taught me a lot about horticulture, the virtues of patience, and how much worm shit in your soil is just enough worm shit in your soil to keep a plant happy.
Repotting this was a bit of a pain in the butt but I'm happy with the end result. I picked up some nice potting soil with organic fertilizers (fertilizer in autumn? Call me crazy!) and threw in a bunch of perlite, charcoal, and pine + fir tree bark chunks to keep the soil breathable. Underneath the soil/at the bottom of the pot there's a layer of porous, decorative lava rocks to keep soil from seeping out of the drainage hole.
Normally you help a plant like this stay upright with a moss pole but I keep seeing crap about moss being unsustainably over-farmed. Instead I opted to use a thing of driftwood I found on the beach for support. Totes saved the environment, no big deal, tell your grandkids I said they're welcome. /s
Sustainability aside I really, really like the aesthetics of it. One potential issue though: I didn't use any sealant on the driftwood so long-term I may have to get rid of it. If the wood retains too much moisture from watering and begins to rot (because it's already dead) then my roots would most likely catch said rot and the plant could die.
To try and stave off rot-risk I'll bottom-water the plant, aka just pour water into the saucer that will be under the pot eventually. From there the plant's soil + the terracotta pot will suck the water up and the bottom of the roots will handle things. I think this will be better for a few reasons:
1) less/no direct contact between water and the wood, less chance for rot
2) watering the plant from the top, or as I like to call it, Trickle Down Hydration can lead to root rot, crown rot, and my least favorite drawback: a moist topsoil attracts fungus gnats. Fungus gnats are eternal. I fucking hate fungus gnats. By bottom watering your plants you keep the topsoil dry and therefore less attractive to bugs.
And lastly
3) I have literally no idea if I'm right about this, but I suspect that bottom watering will encourage the roots to grow faster than they would otherwise. My thinking is they'll want to grow towards wherever the water is coming from. With a better root system the monstera will be more resilient to human error/plant maladies AND it will be able to support way more lush growth above soil.
I'm completely exhausted and uncharacteristically relaxed do I'm going to try to not break my back moving this pot back into place before I pass the tits out.
