Wrangling Lurch

[jpegghost]

I spent the day yesterday wrangling Lurch. Do long time readers remember Lurch? My most beloved monstera deliciosa? Here he is over a year ago, when I bought him (buckled up for safety!)



So he has gotten immensely bigger and has started growing sideways and out. For a while I tolerated it but then I decided to make my own moss pole so I'd stop smacking into his leaves when walking around. Online moss poles are expensive as fuck (especially since this one is about 4' tall), so I bought some plastic garden wire and some spaghnum moss and made my own.



Lush! Elegant! Mossy!

In theory he will grow into the moss pole and start growing upwards, and I will no longer have to zip tie him to it. In theory.

Comments

[amejisuto]

Wow. Lurch is right. That's one big plant. I hope he grows like you want him to.

[jpegghost]

Since monsteras grow upwards in nature (up trees), he should grow up that pole........... and then i have to extend that pole, ad nauseum. I'll do it for him

[amejisuto]

Aww, you're a good plant parent!

[kradeelav]

Lurch Cannot Be Contained(tm) :P

[jpegghost]

Fun fact, when I was moving apartments Lurch was consistently the one trying to escape his pot or knock shit over. He is CRAZY

[goss]

Love it! ♥

[mucky]

Wow, handsome! (Can a plant be handsome? I don't care, he's handsome now.) Live long and prosper, Lord Lurch!

[jpegghost]

He is SO handsome and I love my giant son. Thanks Mucky!

[dark_phoenix54]

Lurch looks great!

[jpegghost]

Thank you! I hope he likes his new setup

[alee_grrl]

Wow, Lurch is certainly thriving! <3

[jpegghost]

He's doing so much better now that he's not spread out so thin!

[earthspirits]

Lurch is gorgeous and the new pole looks great too!

[switterbeet]

How did you anchor the pole? Do you have instructions you can link to?

I tried this for my own (sadly nameless) Monstera a few years ago and it was a floppy mess. I want to try again though because now the plant is a floppy mess, with leaves threatening to subsume that corner of the apartment.

[jpegghost]

oh, it's easy!

I got a wooden pole and put it in the center. So I bought plastic garden wire/fence/whatever's cheaper, spaghnum moss, zip ties, and wooden pole about the size I wanted.

So using a 2' by whatever garden wire i cut it from the roll and zip tied it into a cylinder. Then, knowing Lurch will need a 4' pole, I attached another cylinder on top of that (with zip ties)
I got a 4' wooden pole and staked it in the center. Then I wet a bunch of spaghnum moss so it would expand, and stuffed it in the tube.
After it was filled, I started taking Lurch's aerial roots and edged them in the little holes in the garden wire. I zip tied him into the pole so those roots would stay, then all the non-rooted pieces got their base zip tied against the moss pole.

That's how I did it! If you look up DIY moss poles you'll find a few ways to do it, but mine was an amalgamated mess of all the DIY i was looking at.

[switterbeet]

Thanks!