Monstera brown spots and flimsy
Plant: Monstera deliciosa
How long have you had the plant? 1 to 2 years
Concerns:
Brown spots and flimsy leaves – happened a few months ago. The plant is in a fairly chilly room.
Problematic leaf close up:
Light Situation:
How do you determine WHEN to water? I wait for the soil to become completely dry before watering.
Describe HOW you water: I fully soak the soil, letting excess water drain away.
Fertilizer? Yes, I started recently
Soil: Miracle grow potting mix with Bella moss coarse perlite spread throughout
Darryl’s Analysis
Environment:
The current location where you have it is pretty good in terms of light. Unless the temperature is near freezing, I wouldn’t be too concerned about it being “chilly” for an indoor space.
Effort:
To minimize future appearance of brown patches, it’s good to occasionally flush the soil so excess water that drains through can leach away built up minerals. Obviously, the pot must have a drainage hole in order to do the flushing. IMPORTANT: although this flushes out built up minerals, it also flushes out nutrients so be sure to keep up with fertilizing. And remember that this only minimizes the brown patches – you can never completely prevent it!
WHEN to water: you don’t need to wait until the soil is completely dry before watering – aim for “partially dry” (around halfway between fully saturated and totally dry) to be your cue to water. If your watering cycle is waiting for total dryness, that is likely the reason your leaves aren’t as firm as they could be, although from my assessment, your plant doesn’t look too floppy.
HOW to water: fully soaking and letting excess drain away is good.
Once your plants grows another leaf or two, you will probably want to secure it against a trellis to keep it looking tidy. Here’s an article on how I installed a trellis for my Monstera.
Expectations:
The tips of Monstera leaves will become brown eventually, no matter how good your care is. Ensure your environmental conditions are good for growth so that in the long run, new growth outpaces older leaves dying. Growth potential is dictated by light levels. Realizing that potential involves watering/fertilizing/repotting accordingly. Then let Nature take its course – your plant can still grow well as older leaves die – there is nothing to fix.
My monstera’s nice new leaf, born in June of 2018.
And how it looks in March of 2021: years of hard work (transpiration and filtration of minerals). Since then, many new leaves have grown after this one. The overall plant is doing great!
If you want to learn a healthy, balanced approach to houseplant care, check out my online course or my book.
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I look forward to the help with my monstera. It has a brown medium size spot forming in the center of the leafs, and it’s also turning yellow.