You may have heard that it’s really easy to propagate monstera plants, but there’s a little trick to it that will make all the difference in how successful you are!
I bought a big monstera plant a few months ago and I just love that thing. I’ve even been cutting a few stems off of it to use in vases and they always look so great. The best part is that it just keep putting out new leaves every time I cut one off, so even though I’ve cut quite a few leaves from it now, the plant is actually getting bigger. I had heard that if you put the leaves in water, they will eventually grow roots and you’ll be able to plant them and have a whole new plant, but that just wasn’t happening for me for some reason. Chris and I were in a local home taking photos of a beautiful kitchen and the owner had a pretty impressive houseplant collection. I asked her about one of the plants, we got to chatting, and she ended up showing me how she was propagating her monstera plant and explaining to me how to do it properly. I knew I had to share this info with you right away, so here’s how to propagate monstera plants!
What Not to do When Propagating Monstera
So here’s where I got it all wrong: There’s a particular place on the stem where you need to cut off a leaf if you’re going to get it a root. You can just go cutting it willy-nilly the way I was. Previously, I had just been cutting the stem where I thought it would look best in my vase. Rookie mistake.
If you cut the stem too high up, the leaves will last a very long time in a vase in water. In fact, they can last several months pretty easily. As far as fresh vase fillers go, that’s pretty outstanding. It won’t get you a whole new plant though!
How to Propagate Monstera
When you go to cut off your leaf to propagate, you want to look for a node, which is the place where two stems come together, or where a smaller stems grows out of a main stem.
For this process, you want to cut below the node.
If you look closely, you may even see a few nodes with little nubs growing out below them. That nub is actually a little root already starting to grow so make sure you include that in the part of the plant that you cut off.
Place the stem in a vase of water for a few days to get it started, then transplant it to a planter filled with potting mix.
Word on the street is that you can just place the stem directly into soil and that the water part of the equation really isn’t necessary, but doing the water first was recommended to me, so that’s what I did. 🙂
That’s it! Sit back and watch your new free plant grow! Since my main monstera plan has been growing so quickly, I hope this one turns out to do the same!
Do have a monstera plant? Have you tried propagating it?
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.