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Monstera :: Can I Prune/Thin Up/Transplant?

6 years ago

Hi Everyone,

So I've recently purchased a nice flush and mature Monstera, and it's very abundant but potentially overcrowded. One the soil level, there seem to be more fledgling and intermediate leaves/nodes coming through, so there are mature leaves all the way to babies coming on board in the life cycle!!

My question is, is it possible to prune any of these mature stems and transplant them to another pot? Or any of the pre-existing leaves/stems for that matter? I'd like to thin this pot out a bit but do not want to waste anything or perform any undue harm via surgery! Ideally I could thin up about half of what's in there and start a new pot! Attached are photos of the plant structure and pot. - Thanks for any help in advance.

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Comments (3)

tropicbreezent
6 years ago
They root and put out new growth shoots from the leaf nodes, where the leaf petiole joins the stem. So if you take the plant out of the port, wash all the soil off you'll be able to see all the roots and shoots. Cutting between the leaf nodes along the stem you can isolate each shoot and get new plants, up to you how many you want. The thing is you open the stem to all sorts of fungus/bacteria/etc., so you need to keep it all clean/sterile. When long sections of stem are used the plant usually recovers before any pathogens can work their way in too far. With shorter sections it becomes riskier. So sterilise your cutting instrument and an antifungal on the cut will protect it until the plant section gets growing again.
Photo Synthesis
6 years ago
It's not overcrowded, its just needs to be repotted into a larger pot. I would go with a pot that's two sizes larger, because it will quickly fill in all of that extra room. They grow perfectly fine like this, it just needs more room for its roots to grow and spread out. I wouldn't even bother pruning or dividing it. I would just wash off all of the old soil and repot it using a blend of 50% cacti/succulent soil, & 50% orchid bark.
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Veronika
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I agree with Photo Synthesis - I wouldn't thin it out, I would just repot it into a larger pot, and let it get large. If you want another plant to give away or to have two or more, you could take one of the smaller side suckers when you are repotting, make sure it has roots, cut that off with a sterilized instrument, and pot it into a small pot separately - rooted suckers tend to take off pretty well.

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