My monstera kept toppling over. Okay it was barely mine yet and its status as a freestanding living plant was becoming questionable.
A friend had given me the cutting from her monstera philodendron plant. They are those huge houseplants with the lobed leaves with holes in them. They showed up frequently in Matisse paintings. This cutting was an odd shaped arc of stem with a few leaves that jutted out at awkward angles. I broke off a couple of the bottom leaves, planted it in a pot, and put it out on my deck. I figured I’d let it do its plant thing over the summer.
But there were some problems. First, the pot didn’t have drainage holes, so the monstera would be sitting in a swamp of a pot after it rained. And when I tried to pour out the water the cutting would fall out of the dirt.
I’d shove it back in. And things would seem fine for a while. But then I’d find the plant toppled over and lying on the ground. I’d replant it. And it would happen again. It would get flooded by the rain or just keel over. It was never going to put down roots this way.
It was time for a deeper pot. One with drainage holes. And a tomato cage to keep the cutting upright..
I had no idea these huge monstera plants with their enormous leaves require so much help. They look like sturdy nearly indestructible plants that just grow and grow and grow. But as I learn over and over in life…looks can be deceiving. Monsteras like all living things need the right conditions and some support.
On their own they fall over, they sprawl in an unbecoming way, their leaves flop down on the ground. In the wild they latch onto trees. As domesticated plants they look to us to offer them a frame in which to grow, a structure to attach to, and ties to help bind them.
It is easy to think each one of us - human or monstera - can stand on our own. That we can make our way through the world on our own accord. But we all require infrastructure and support to underpin our existence. Sure, we like to think we have autonomy and agency. But we don’t develop into ourselves on our own. We are nurtured and trained. We are supported by parents, society, and institutions. We lean on others. We grow from our interactions with the world around us. Yes, we become our own selves, but selves that develop in relationship to those around us.
And thanks to some support, my adopted monstera offshoot has now become its own thriving plant. Like all of us, it just needed a little help along the way.
