My Monstera Thai Constellation Nightmare/ Saving from Root rot

Hi everybody! Thank you for watching. This is Deanna and I'm sharing my plant life with you and learning from you all. So I've seen some YouTube videos on how to replant, repot a Monstera Thai and basically it's like any other Monstera. But I just wanted to make sure I knew what it likes soil wise. So I bought this Monstera Thai constellation back in June so it's been July-August. Only two months with me so I've let it settle in its original pot. This is the original pot. I want to say it's about six inches. And I'll tell you a little story about this one. When we got it, it came with some the leaves were floppy as you can see there and here. And I thought that it was probably due to the greenhouse being super hot. Maybe it had not been watered in the proper time so I thought as soon as I watered it, it was going to perk up. As soon as I had it in my house and better temperature, maybe not extreme, it was going to perk up. And it has not perked up. It came with this leaf. This one came basically perfect. There was a little bit of browning on this leaf and I cut off just a little bit on the tip and then a little bit more happened on the edges and that's it. It has stopped. So at least that's good. But I'm not too worried about the browning anymore because it has not continued. I do have a humidifier but I didn't. I just got it about two three weeks ago. Before that I was checking the humidity level with one of the humidity readers and it always stays. It's summer here in North Carolina so it has been staying above 50 percent. 60 percent I think is the average in my home. So I know humidity should be fine. So if any of you all know why this could be it, please let me know. So the person I bought it from mentioned that he recommended me repotting it in August. So it is August and I want to repot it. One of the things I'm not very happy with is that when I water it and then I measure the water because I have one of those readers that you put in and tells you wet moist or dry. It's been staying in in a high number. I want to say closer to the wet but it's not wet. Look at the soil. Look how fluffy it is. It's a very fluffy soil. The man talked all about his soil and how good his soil is. So it shouldn't be horrible but at the same time I feel like it stays in a wet not wet very moist reading more than a week and I don't like that. I think for such a small pot in a week it should already be dry and actually we have to water it but I don't think I water it every but every two weeks closer to three weeks maybe three weeks. I've watered it once maybe the whole time I've had it in two months because I keep measuring it it's still reading a little bit of a higher level. So my only next thing that I want to do is repot it and I want to change up this. I wonder how much root there is. I'm questioning was this a pretty new cutting and that it has just been put in soil and there's not a lot of roots. You don't see any aerial roots on it. So I'm thinking maybe it's a new cutting and it's just been working on creating roots and that's why it's not progressing. There's no new leaves coming. It's kind of just stuck. So I bought I'm gonna keep this soil there's supposed to be little fertilizing beads that the man put on it. It's supposed to be a very good fertilizer already in it. So I bought this orchid bark potting mix and look how chunky it is. Everybody talks about you're supposed to have very chunky soil. So this one seems to fit the bill. This one says that it's made out of fir bark and it says charcoal and coarse perlite. So all that sounds good. And then I bought some perlite. So I'm just gonna go ahead and add that too because it's supposed to help. It says here it helps improve drainage and aeration. There is some miracle growth plant food. There is some so I'm definitely not going to fertilize her with any more fertilizer because there's still there's some there. Okay so anyhow you're gonna get to see with me how the roots look and maybe later I'll do a video where I show in a month or two months three months has this been successful or not. And of course I don't want to lose this beautiful baby so I'm a little nervous because yes it's an investment. This is not a cheap plant. Okay so here we go. I haven't watered it in a while so the dirt should be nice and dry. Okay we're gonna tilt it over let the dirt fall here. It's kind of stuck which I'm that makes me think that it's moist down here if it's stuck. Let's see how much root there is. I'm curious. And of course why what if there's root rot? There is some root rot. That's what's going on. That's why I wasn't so happy. That's why she's floppy because most likely the roots of the ones that are feeding the leaves that are floppy have a little bit of root rot. And then the ones that are the one leaf that's doing perfect has a better root on it. So what to do? That makes me sad. So from what I've seen in the videos of you guys is that you cut off whatever is root rot and you can tell by the way it feels. It's not firm. It's kind of a little bit soft. Like look at this. This is root rot. It's soft. It is dark brown. It's dead. This is dead. You see? That's not a good root. This this part here is good. This part here is good. This part is not good. So I kind of want to cut it here. I'm gonna have to go get my little cutting blades. Okay I just rinsed the roots in water so I could see better what was going on. And look how clear you can see what root rot is. What a live root is. So no we don't want to keep anything that's rotten. And I mean it almost just comes off. What's bad? So here I'm gonna cut. I just cleaned the blades with alcohol. I cut here. Okay I have to cut a little bit more because it was still a little black. Okay and this one here I'm trying to feel to decide what's alive and what's not. I want to say I want to cut that one. I don't know. Let's just go to the ones I'm sure sure I have to cut off. This one I have to cut off. Okay I'm gonna cut off this. This is so sad. And like I've told you I've only watered it like once in two months so this is totally not my fault. I'm just thinking it's the dirt they put it in. It was not barky enough. Obviously there's no bark in there. Am I disappointed? Yes. You would expect a greenhouse to use a good dirt because they are professional right? That's what I would have thought. But there's no bark there and obviously it's not airy enough. Okay guys so after I had potted it and it's now midnight I ended up coming back taking it out and I've washed it with soap because I saw a video that talked about how it's good to to stop the bacteria. You're usually washing it with soap. Any kind of soap would be good. I used Dr. Bonner soap to wash it off really good and of course it says anything that seems suspicious cut it off. But as you guys can see there's even a little bit of root rot right there and I can't cut it all the way up there because if not I'm going to be left with like no node. So I'm hoping the main core will be okay even though there's a little bit of edges root rot. I don't know if I'm doing a right decision or not but what I'm going to do is I'm going to leave it 24 hours aerating it so it can dry off a little bit and then I'm going to um whenever I repot it which I don't know if I'll do it in moss or or if in dirt and um and if I do it in dirt I'll just pull it out maybe after a week or three days or two days I don't know to kind of watch it and see if it's gotten worse or better or if there's more roots coming out. Okay I just wanted to be truthful and show you guys my journey with my Thai Monstera. Isn't she pretty though? Oh time to save you. Okay so we're gonna repot this baby. This is how the roots are looking now. I've cut everything that I've decided that was rotten. Hopefully we've done this right. I ended up adding a little bit of cinnamon to the tips that I had cut just because some people have suggested um something could be used like cinnamon like wax or some people are using some kind of uh root that they root booster root something that they sell but anyhow I had this at hand. I did it and I actually have allowed um about 20 hours to go by since I cut the roots um this is actually day two I ended up aerating the roots just leaving it basically like it is so the roots would maybe dry a little bit and not rot. Okay so that's what I'm doing we'll see if all this works out well hopefully I'm really nervous. Okay so I've put here a mixture of some potting soil that I got from a greenhouse. It's basic potting soil. They say they pot all their plants with this one but it although it's it's light there's not enough chunk in it so I'm gonna go ahead and add orchid bark. This one says it has bark, charcoal, and perlite so those should be great ingredients right? So from what I've seen in um everybody's tips and reviews is basically you want the soil to be very chunky that's basically what you're shooting for it's chunky chunky chunky so we're gonna add some of that and we're gonna add some of the perlite because there's not too much perlite in that orchid mix it was very light and there were bigger pieces of orchid mix so we're gonna add a few scoops of this I'm gonna add two mix it and let's feel the soil and see how it feels looks overall we just want a very chunky soil we want it to drain drain drain because we don't want any root rot feeling I feel like I'm cooking mixing the ingredients together so yes we're eyeballing how much we're putting in as if we were professional dirt makers soil makers for so then we're gonna we're gonna taste it the way we taste this is by feeling it it's definitely chunky um I want to say half of the composition is dirt even though in my brain I'm saying there's not enough dirt about half of it was dirt and half of it now is the chunky um wood chips now should I add more maybe a little more I don't know if this is going to be enough I guess I can always just do this and see if it's enough okay so let's put some in the pot terracotta pot of course safe is bet we're trying to prevent root rot let's see actually here honestly I'm a little bit nervous there's not too much roots but in my brain if it had all that stuff that was black it wasn't even feeding the plant and it was still alive I'm thinking this is going to be enough for it to be alive and just get better with time so it seems like that would be too low I think I have to add more because of course I'm going to try to put the dirt basically around here around here okay so I know I'm gonna have to make more dirt now I already know I'm gonna have to make more so I mixed up really quickly more of the same dirt about the same composition nice and fluffy and airy so I'm gonna go ahead and position well actually let's put a little bit more because I don't want it to be so deep down in the pot maybe like this so let's start putting the dirt there's a lot of perlite as you can see the big chunks all that should help we don't want this to be a very compact dirt we want it to be very light will this hold the plant I don't think so I'm lightly squeezing it in I just want the plant to hold and it's not because it's so light this dirt is so light how do we do this I wish I had a moss cloth I'm not supposed to cover it too much that's the problem because we don't have a lot of roots to hold this maybe when I get it wet it'll compact it let's check that okay so I am gonna I'm gonna put some water because I did aerate it for about 24 hours so I'm thinking it's gonna be okay there is holes in the bottom of this so put some water on it oh and I did put a little bit of fish emulsion in this water but I did kind of very light lighter than what's recommended okay I think that might be all the water I'm getting for today because then what I'm gonna do is that I'm gonna monitor it and like I do have one of these that monitors they can read to you how wet the water is so I'll be using this every day to monitor of course you never want it to stay wet any plant that you just think you just watered it can it should read wet but maybe for a few days and I was having the problem that the dirt that it came with from the greenhouse it was staying closer to the it says here from seven to ten is wet and it was staying at the eight mark for more than seven days so that was a big signal that something was wrong and I should have taken it out from its dirt before they what I did I left it in that dirt for about two months so lesson learned if you have one of these it's great and if it's staying wet for more than seven days go ahead and change the soil it's not good for it because it caused some root rot in this beautiful monstera okay so now I'm just curious let's measure it and see what it reads actually the dirt no I shouldn't have done it last time because that's where I have the roots okay so it's measuring wet you see that eight so that's where so now I'm just obviously I just watered it so that's normal but what's gonna happen the next days is what I'm gonna monitor and I'm gonna have it really next to a very bright window it even gets a little bit of sun in the mornings and that should be look how look how fluffy this dirt is it just moves so the water shouldn't stay I'm wondering which water in the bottom of this bowl no nothing poured out because I didn't put that much in it so but I just wanted to dry faster I rather water it every three four days and know that it's drying in between instead of for it to stay wet because we just want those roots to now grow but we don't want them to rot so hopefully I can do a video later on and let you guys know what's happening obviously when a plant's doing good it's going to be giving new leaves so we'll see how long it takes from today today is about August 29th I believe so we'll see what happens how long it takes for the next leaf to come out thank you for watching and don't forget to like hopefully something was helpful to you and we're sharing our experiences together and we can learn from each other bye okay guys so it's uh basically two weeks tomorrow will be two week mark since we did the whole shebang on this Thai constellation and uh it's alive it's alive it's alive uh look at that leaf it's still alive um it feels like the ones that were already droopy are droopy maybe a tad more but it might need water right now I've watered it um maybe after I did that transfer maybe three four days later I measured it and it was measured I put so much uh perlite and the orchid bark that when I measure it when I'm measuring thingy it was like measuring like a number three four so that's and then um I want to say I've watered it about twice in these two weeks um it needs water now because it's measuring I think I want to say two I think that's what we saw earlier so but I was just saying that I wanted to take it out because I want to see the roots I want to make sure there's no more root rot because if there is I should just go ahead and treat it now um instead of just letting it go before it's dead dead or maybe I'll see some progress in the roots so I'm gonna gently wiggle it out I should have taken a picture of it so I could compare there was I mean okay so this is what I'm looking at I haven't rinsed it in water or anything this part that's dark here it was dark then but I decided to keep it this edge here oh man doesn't feel good this edge is like flat crunchy-ish like seems dead all these seems like mush from here to here why why why what should I do oh what I should do I mean if I had to cut it all the way over if I have to cut it all over here then I'm really worried and scared I need a professional help this is what the roots look like you see that part that's what I'm really feel like that's not good so obviously I would think to chop that off but then there's still dark there on the base so I don't know if I'm supposed to cut all everything that's dark so that would mean to cut it all off a hundred percent and yeah that's how it looks and this is the actual node part hopefully this gives you a better view so yeah I want to know if how much I should cut off and where I should put it to for it to grow roots back in soil what kind of soil or if in water I know some people do that too but I'm scared of water causing more root rot but you should know more than I do okay so this has been a painful experience I called the person I bought the plant for him from because of course he has more experience and I showed him a video and he was like cut it all off hi so um so I even cut off a little bit more of the base and now I'm gonna make a run to Lowe's and buy some rooting hormone because I don't have any rooting hormone and put some on the base and now um I don't know like the dirt I don't know I think I'm gonna instead of using pumice I'm gonna go get some perlite and see if I can use more perlite and less pumice because he told me the pumice can retain some water although it's been very dry here I honestly think the problem was that I didn't cut enough of the rotten part so it just kept going we'll see gambling good amount of money more money than I've ever paid for a plant just gotta laugh sometimes after a Lowe's trip okay so like I said we cut off a little extra all the way to the node part and now after a Lowe's trip got the only one they sold take root from garden safe because I called the grower and he said that I needed to put cut it all off and re-root it and we're kind of you know iffing it because it's like almost September and you know all the growing season stops like in October so anyhow we're going to put some of this outside dip it in but I'm going to pour some in a little bag and then dip the root in a little bag because you don't want to contaminate this I've heard and now prepared some new fresh soil and it's very airy orchid bark perlite and like 20% 30% of dirt very very I heard that's what you're supposed to do I'm changing the pot to a smaller one since there's no roots it's basically I don't want to have a big pot where there's gonna be so much dirt in there that retains water so anyhow let's try this it's been um tomorrow will be a since we transferred it over and we wanted to check it and make sure there's no more rotting coming out and it doesn't seem like it um hey we can rinse it I'll put water on it it doesn't look black the bottom just there's just dirt you see that but it doesn't look black like there's more root rot which we're I'm very very happy about but there's no new roots and it's been only a week so question is at this point should we keep it in soil or should we do sphagnum moss I mean what do you think would promote root growth the fastest because I know every day that it's not having roots it's not getting water to its leaves and we don't want it to die so what would you recommend just want you to see it here it is this is the best leaf um this is how the best leaf looks um there's a little bit of yellowing there on the side a little bit on bottom this one's not too bad but look at these and then look at this one you see the yellow on the sides so basically my plant had a little bit of browning but this yellowing that I see right here it's dehydration and that's when I was like dying so anyhow this is how it looks in water so I just want I'm wondering if it can suction at this point since I don't see any long roots you know or any little roots there's little speck of a root but I think that's closer to where I cut this is the area root and it's basically been like that since I bought it and that's how it still is I know I was supposed to have the area root underneath water because around the area root so the new roots should be shooting out from around here but I mean how long will it take I don't know that's basically what it looks you see the little white is because of that rooting powder it got stuck to those spots on the bottom that's how it looks is the white is like the the rooting hormone thing but anyhow it's a waiting game okay so it's October 17th since the last time I showed I filmed when cut all the leaves and put it in water it was September it was about a month ago so about four weeks have gone by and this is what's happened so it was terrifying to cut all the leaves off because of course I was afraid it was just gonna die and four weeks later this is how the leaves are looking let's let me show you the roots and I guess it's the most important part here it is happy to see the growth in the roots so this is like I said a month later I was very curious like how long was it gonna take and I want to say after like being in the water a good seven days after the seven day mark I started seeing some roots start growing and this is a month later I've put nothing else in the water other than actual filtered water and I'm changing it out every two to three days and basically what's happened is that it seems like the two leaves that are coming out of where all the roots are at are the ones that are doing the best and the two leaves that are coming out of the node that does not have any leaves are the ones that ended up drying out but they were kind of drying out already just with the root rot they weren't even if there was roots but if they're rot of course they weren't getting um any of the water so so far it's a bittersweet story I wish root rot would have never happened because two leaves got damaged two big leaves that one and that one and then from the better node where it's getting all the roots basically not damaged that leaf and this leaf is from the better node just a little here on the edges but hey this plant has caused stress so I kind of you know thought well maybe I did get too quickly into buying expensive an expensive plant maybe I went in too quickly and I should have waited until I had more experience where maybe I would have detected the root rot a little faster and then from what I did but um you live and you learn right that's the story with plants so maybe I didn't want to learn the story but root rot with a beautiful Thai constellation but I'm hopeful that now that there's roots that there's going to be life so um definitely slow down how fast my plant is going to grow but as long as it lives I'm happy so that's been my experience with root rot in a Thai constellation um learning that yeah it's it's doing well in water I enjoy doing it in water better than the dirt because I could watch the roots versus the dirt I couldn't watch the roots so yeah I definitely recommend the water method and um you know we've heard that sometimes if you actually put your um planter like in a in a pot that's covered or maybe instead of using glass use one that's actually dark that it dark on the actual roots kind of help it so they can grow faster and I have been putting it inside of this thing here because I just had glass and I wanted to actually be able to watch the roots but then I put it in here by a window that gets morning sun so the sleeve is soaking up the morning sun but not in the afternoon it's not gonna need direct sun but there is some direct sun in the morning and hopefully you know that's gonna that's been helping the roots grow so that's the story that's what I'm gonna keep doing I'm gonna keep it in water for a pretty long time I'm picturing easily another two months I don't know you guys tell me how long you guys have had to keep it in water but I'm thinking might gonna end up having to be in here for a good two to three months because I want to make sure there's lots of roots whenever I change it back to soil anyhow um I hope you guys learned something from my experience and uh that you um enjoyed seeing my story my plant mama journey story you know you have lots and lots of joys but they're lives you know a different type of life these plants so you also worry when they're not doing that great but hopefully I plan to do like in the future a video six months from now when this plant's gonna be looking so much better um now just I think I'm gonna trim up all of this brown stuff and see how it looks let's do it guys so I have my scissors ready I've already disinfected them with alcohol just in case so let's just clean it up okay so this one's one of the sadder ones which is a little sad but yeah there's no point of the brunt I guess can stay I don't think it's damaging to the plant but at the same time it doesn't it's not going to get green again and it's not pretty so I just want to remove since there's so much of so yeah having these variegated plants is such a you know everybody wants them I finally got the plant I wanted and unfortunately it's been the plant that's caused me the most stress but hopefully from now on there won't be more stress it'll just be happy times happy moments interesting shape I'm gonna have oh baby I hope from now on she's getting the water she needs but we'll see just you know I'm just this leaves I'm a little worried about because those nodes have not shot up new roots yet but I'm it seems like it wants to shoot out a new little fruit from this node where this leaf goes hopefully well here she is so of course this was the prettiest leaf just get started and isn't this funny it looks like a different type of plant the shape that it ended up with it's pretty cool though it's pretty cool and uh this leaf is one that came kind of new when I just got the plant like it had just unfurled so it was all wimpy looking it's now getting hard a little bit more than before this one didn't suffer much browning this I had to cut it off for the moment I bought it so that was not it didn't really suffer from any new browning and this is the other leaf that I already trimmed up the one I got it already had some brown but I did have to cut off a little bit more so this is my time consolation baby and my story this is everything that I cut off so yeah um hopefully in the future we'll get some new leaves coming from here I think that's a new leaf here let's check it out right here you see the little I think that should be a new leaf once it gets happy and it gets more roots so um I'll keep you guys posted we'll see what happens in the future and uh hopefully in the future she'll be like oh I have a tight consolation let's be hopeful hopefully you enjoy thanks for watching don't forget to subscribe I'll keep sharing my plant journey with you guys and I'm learning and I can learn from you guys and let's just keep sharing together bye