By the many of post I've read thus far it seems I've found myself in a Very common situation.
I've bought this albo cutting locally, and was advised to put in water, which I did.
It's been 5 days and this black is super concerning so I started googling and found myself here. I've now realized this is not the best method. I have ordered some sphagnum moss but it won't be to me for a few more days. I do however have soilless potting mix and the mediums to just pot the cutting... which would be better? Keeping this in water and waiting for the moss or trying my hand at straight to soil?

Picture of when I first got it and now

Any advice is welcome,
I would love to save this babe

You were actually very lucky to get the cutting that you did. But, taking the advice to out it into water was ill advised and now you have rot.

I answer a lot of these questions, because I have been growing these variegated monsteras since c2002 and have propagated many times. I try to present facts, so these are the facts. I realize it may be too late for this to be said, but, in case you ever do this again, it may help.

Monstera are epiphytic plants. When they grow in the wild, they do not start in potting mix, moss, or water. (When did you ever know a plant, other than a true aquatic, to root itself in water?) Monstera actually start out life up in the trees above the forest floor on a host of some kind. Usually a tree where a bird or small mammal has dropped a seed, which germinates on the leaf litter and other detritus. The plant forms roots that adhere to the host and travel down the host until they reach the forest floor, where they enter the soil and branch out. Until they reach the floor, (which can be over 30 feet of traveling down) the adventitious roots are totally capable of absorbing water and nutrients to sustain the plants.

That said, you did not need actually, with that very nice root that the person graciously left on your cutting (most sellers chop the roots and you have basically a worthless stick), to 'root' your cutting any further. It was already rooted. Planting the adventitious root would have caused it to start branching and creating soil roots on its own. All you needed to do was treat the cut end (the end closest to whatever that yellow thing is) with a fungicide and plant it in a small container of whatever substrate you chose to use.

Now though you have to deal with the rot, which unfortunately seems to be extending now to your root.

You need to take a sharp blade, like a craft knife, and start very carefully debriding the rot from the stem, cutting to clean tissue. This may cause you to have to sacrifice your root. I hope not, because that is your only, lonely node. You also have a very nice new shoot already formed. If your root gets sacrificed and the rot has gone through the nodal tissue, you may not have enough left to form a new root. Monstera produce roots from one side of the stem and leaves/shoots from the opposite. A new root will generally not form on the same side as the leaves/shoots and vice versa.

You can take the approach of excising carefully enough tissue to leave the root, and treat very well with fungicide and hope that it is enough to stop the advance of the rot and heal over, it may, or it may not. If any of the distal end of your root is mushy with rot, you should cut the root above the rot and treat that with fungicide too.

Putting it in moss would be the best thing, but if you have to wait days for it, it could arrive too late. Do you have any perlite that you could use? Or any fir bark? If you have some things that can help lighten the soil-less potting mix and make it more porous that would help. But, the most important thing is to address the rot and treat with fungicide. If you don;t stop the rot, it won;t matter what you pot it in.

Thank you so much for your advise. I should have went with my initial gut feeling and not placed in water. I believe there is one other node on the bottom of the cutting but it's also close to the existing root.

I'm going to remove from water and move over.

The black doesn't feel mushy or soft, it's just discolored so far but I will cut and treat.

After doing some reading I've come across just placing directly into perlite, Do you have an option on this method? It seems to be successful and I do have some on hand.

I very much appreciate you sharing some of your expertise.

This is the only fungicide I have. & it does not advise on how to use it for something like this.

Will this work or should I purchase something else?

I have no experience with Daconil. I also have no experience with cooler fungicides. I have always (for 20 years) used Captan. But go with what you have.

Putting a cutting in Perlite (or LECA/ALIFLOR, the compressed clay balls) is a method called semi-hyrdo. What you want to do is put just the lower tip of the root (like maybe a 1/2 ") into the water and keep the rest relatively dry. I have some jewel alocasias in permanent semi-hydro in my terrarium (alocasia cuprea and alocasia infernalis). Let me see if I can get a photo to demonstrate what I mean.

Semi hydro tends to sork for these cuttings because in nature, that is what would happen naturally, the long adventitious root would travel into the damp soil, and 30 feet of root would be dry where only the buried part would be receiving any rainfall. The rainfall that would hit the host would just run over the exposed roots system, and the plant could absorb what it needed and let the rest drain away. The water roots formed in semi hydro will then have to be carefully adapted to soil though, because they will be fragile, a lot more fragile than soil roots.

These plants were planted into this terrarium over 2 years ago. The levels of the planting substrate are between 2- 3 inches of Aliflor (clay balls) and pea gravel, and an overlay of a mix of perlite, fir bark, sphagnum and coconut husk. The only actually water in the terrarium is a reservoir in the clay ball layer. The roots of the plants go through the upper substrate down to the reservoir where mostly their tips are. A small amount of water is wicked up into the upper substrate so that it is damp but never wet. It is a porous mix and has allowed the root systems of these plants to develop substantially. The only water that this terrarium gets is with a hand sprayer to the back wall (which is made of cork bark flats). Whatever trickles down when I water the shinglers and orchids on the back wall replaces water lost to evaporation in the lower clay ball layer. This is the basic scenario of semi-hydro

I was able to find moss locally and I found captan at my local nursery. I preformed surgery, letting the end I cut off to callus over and then will place in moist moss

Thank you again for your help and wish me and this babe luck ♥️




You have such a beautiful collection. Your extensive knowledge really shows with how healthy and thriving your plants are!

Are the cut ends being exposed like this okay?
The root and node are placed in the moss

Also do you recommend leaving this indoors to root or would outside on my covered patio with my other monsteras be okay? Is covering with a bag to trap humidity a good idea? I live in the south so I have high humidity naturally. Sorry so many questions I've realized Some or the information I've had is false and want to do it the right way this time.

That actually looks ideal to me. I would leave it out on the patio...this time of year it will be really excellent for heat humidity and very good air movement.

Hello Gina1960,
I just wanted to return to this forum to say thank you again. I have done my fair of surfing through this forum and see you answering the same questions often and I'm sure that gets daunting, but you're absolutely helping others with the knowledge you share. With your help I was able to save my albo cutting and after lots of patience it's finally rooting!

I am happy I was able to help you! You are doing a great job!