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My monstera dropped 3 leaves in a week and I almost killed it with kindness | Botany Lovers - nhfree.com

My monstera dropped 3 leaves in a week and I almost killed it with kindness

Back in March I moved my monstera from a north window in my apartment in Baltimore to a spot right next to a south facing slider, thinking it would love all that light. Within five days it dropped three leaves, and the fourth was going yellow at the edge so I knew I had messed up. I panicked and did the classic new plant parent thing, watered it more, which was the exact opposite of what it needed. Turns out the soil was staying wet way too long because the bigger pot I had just moved it into held water like a sponge. I pulled the whole root ball out on my kitchen counter, and about a third of the roots were dark and mushy. I cut those off with clean scissors, let it dry out for two days, and put it back in a smaller terracotta pot with way chunkier soil. Six weeks later it pushed out two new leaves and it has been fine since. My question for you all is how do you tell the difference between a plant that wants more light and one that is just stressed from being moved? I swear the leaves looked the same to me either way.

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1 Comment

emery87918d ago

Are you sure light was even the problem in the first place? Everyone blames light when a plant drops leaves, but a repot plus a move plus more water all at once is three changes at the same time, and I'd bet the soggy roots did most of the damage, not the south window. Plenty of monsteras sit in bright south light and get huge, so saying the light stressed it out may be backwards. Here's the thing though, you can't really tell light stress from move stress just by looking, because the plant drops leaves for almost any shock. The real tell is watching what the new growth does over the next few weeks, not reading the old leaves. If new leaves come in small and pale and the stems stretch, that's a light problem, and if the whole thing just sulks and quits growing, that's usually root or shock stuff. So maybe stop staring at the leaves and start checking the soil before you water, because I'd argue overwatering kills way more monsteras than a sunny window ever will.