Soil is an important part when it comes to monstera plant health. The Plant receives water and nutrients from the soil.
Monstera deliciosa is a popular plant. For proper care, you should use the best soil mix for monstera plants.
In this post, you’ll get complete information on the monstera soil. After reading it you will be able to choose the best potting soil for your monstera plants.
Let’s start with the basic queries
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Why do you need the best soil for Monstera Deliciosa?
Monstera plants are soft-root plants. They need a moderate amount of nutrients and well-draining soil to grow. You have to use the best soil, fertilizer, and pot for your plant to give it the best possible care.
Incompatible soil results in slower growth and less bloom.
For the heavy bloom and healthy plants, the soil has to best in class.
Can I use my garden soil for monstera plants?
Garden soil is not recommended for the monstera plants. Because your garden soil may contain harmful bacteria and pathogens. Garden soil is not fast-draining soil.
To use your garden soil, you need to add many other things to make it suitable for container plants. This increases the growing cost per plant.
There is not any surety that after altering the garden soil it becomes perfect soil for monstera plants.
You also need to sterilize the garden soil before use this increases work. Moreover, there is no 100% soil sterilization method is available.
On the other side. The commercial potting mix is already sterilized. It does not contain any part of the normal soil.
Potting mixes are derived from many organic substances.
The best part is the affordable cost of potting soil.
Note: Commercial mixes are called potting soil but they do not contain any part of the soil. Yet people called it potting soil.
Garden soil is best for ground-rooted plants not for container plants.
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What factors do you need to consider while choosing the monstera soil mix?
There are only a few things that you need to keep in mind while choosing the potting soil. There are many types of potting soils in the market.
Nowadays manufacturers made separate potting soil for each plant family. For your monstera, you can get special monstera soil from the garden store.
But the garden stores sell the soil at higher rates. You can easily get a good discount on monstera potting soil on Amazon.
Some ready-to-use soils have limited nutrients and you need to fertilize your plants. Whereas the second type is pre-fertilized monstera soil.
This soil contains all the nutrients that a plant needs to grow from a seed to a big plant. It is also called pre-mixed soil.
By using it in plant pots you do not need to buy separate fertilizers. Organic material is the main source of nutrients in such soils.
It is best for new growers because they do not have knowledge about the soil. And they cannot make the potting soil at home.
Below is the List of the best soil qualities
Draining properties
The motive of choosing the best soil mix for monstera is to grow it healthily and save it from many plant problems.
Well-draining means the soil that drains most of the water quickly. But plants need moisture to grow. To increase its water retention power growers are suggested to add perlite to it.
Perlite absorbs water in it and keeps the soil less moist. The plants get water from the perlite when they need it.
It has big particles than soil particles. This makes it lose so that the roots can easily grow in it. If you are making soil at home. Then make sure all the materials have different size particles.
Because when you use ingredients of the same size. They become compact when you water the monstera.
Again, the root rot chances are increased to 90%. Once your plant gets infected by root rot. You have to use the new soil to save it.
This doubles the work and also increases the plant growing cost.
Therefore, it is best to use good soil for monstera plants from the beginning and you’ll not face any problems.
Aeration
As we all know plants absorb Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through their leaves. But most of you might not know that plant roots also need fresh oxygen.
The heavy and compacted soil blocks the oxygen in the root area. This directly affects the food-making system of the plant
The lack of oxygen and excess moisture in the soil gives birth to fungi bacteria. These fungi start eating the plant roots and if not fixed on time will eat up the entire plant. It spread to all parts of it.
Once the roots start dying the plant cannot stay healthy. It will also start dying and once fungi destroy 60% of the roots. Then you cannot save your plant.
The only option left is to cut the stem and propagate it.
Therefore, well-aerated soil is best for monstera.
Moisture holding capacity
This is also called the water retention capabilities of the soil. New growers get confused when I said well-draining soil with good moisture-holding properties is good for plants.
They often ask how soil can be both well-draining and also absorb a good amount of water, not possible!
But in actuality you only need to add a few parts of porous material in well-draining soil. To increase its water-absorbing capabilities.
Perlite is the best example; it is a hollow substance that has tiny pores in it. This makes it lightweight. It stores water in its pores and supplies it to the plant roots when they need water.
Well-draining and good water retention soil help your plan to survive on overwatering and in low humidity.
The perlite in soil stores a huge amount of water for a constant supply. This way your plant does not need to absorb much moisture from the air. This makes you monstera able to live in low humidity. Otherwise, once the humidity drops down the monstera starts suffering and leaves start turning yellow.
Nature of the soil
From soil nature, we mean the pH of the soil. Monstera needs slightly acidic soil. The best pH range is 5.0 to 6.5. At the time of buying the monstera soil. You need to tell the garden store guys that you need the best monstera soil mix.
Commercial potting mixes have a balanced pH range. To make it slightly acidic you need to add lime in it. You can only add 15% lime to plant soil.
Note: Slightly acidic soil is the best soil mix for monstera plant growth and health.
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Nutrients in the soil
Now, this is the very important part. Because once the plant absorbs all nutrients from the soil it becomes useless. Until you refill nutrients in the monstera soil.
Now that the nutrients are of two types one is synthetic chemical-based nutrients. The second is organic nutrients. Your soil can be organic nutrient-rich or synthetic.
Soil that contains organic nutrients always does better when it comes to growing monstera plants. While buying the soil from the nursery store check the label. They mention every single ingredient detail on the soil bag.
Organic matter-rich soil is light in weight and has excellent draining properties. These nutrients are derived from all-natural ingredients. They do not put a negative impact on plant growth.
Your plant grows slowly but they become strong and healthy. Organic particles take time to break down. This makes a slow availability of nutrients.
Best soil mix recipes for monstera
Monstera needs good fertile soil to grow and thrive. But this does not mean you buy any costly potting soil and start using it in monstera plant pots.
The soil has to be the best soil for monstera.
I will show you two best soil recipes that I use to care monstera
Recipe 1
2 parts of miracle grow mix + 1 part of perlite
Miracle grow is a reputed manufacturer of potting soil and houseplant nutrients. I use 2 parts of it and 1 part of perlite.
This is the perfect combo of high-quality well-draining and well-aerated soil.
Recipe 2
Potting mix + coco coir + perlite in equal quantities
In this recipe, you will get nutrient-rich and well-draining soil. This soil is perfect to grow monstera.
Is cactus soil safe for monstera?
No, you cannot use cactus potting soil because the monstera plants need a high amount of moisture in the soil. The cactus potting soil does not hold much moisture. Plants like cactus always need less water and less moisture than other plants.
If you have a bag of cactus soil at home. Then no need to buy additional soil because there is a method to make it the best soil mix for monstera
Take the cactus soil and add 1 part of perlite and compost in it. By mixing these ingredients you can convert cactus soil into monstera soil.
Choosing the perfect pot for monstera
The second most important thing after the monstera soil mix is the plant pot. You need to check the following while choosing the monstera plant pot.
Size of pot
The material
Drainage
The pot Size
The size of the pot impacts plant health and growth. It is crucial to use the right side of the pot. Because the large pots contain a high amount of monstera soil.
When you water the soil, it absorbs water in large quantities.
This will increase the chances of root rot infection. Therefore, the small pot size is best to use. Do not use a pot bigger than 8 inches wide.
Material
Use porous material plant pots for monstera. Because they have pores to increase the airflow. Terracotta and clay pots are the best to use.
Monstera is prone to root rot and which is the result of overwatering. These materials allow the extra moisture to evaporate in a few minutes.
The only drawback of a porous plant pot is you have to give frequent water. In summer where monstera grown in a plastic pot need less water.
Monstera grown in terracotta need frequent water. you can use a wooden mulch to help the soil to retain moisture.
Drainage
This is the mechanism that saves your plants from extra water. There should be a bottom hole in the base of the plant pot. This hole works as the drainage system of the plant container. When the soil absorbs the required moisture. Then the extra water starts collecting at the base of the plant.
The drainage hole allows this water to quickly move out of the pot. This action saves your monstera from many fungus diseases.
Draining pot is equally important for monstera as the best soil mix for monstera.
