How To Propagate Monstera Albo

Welcome to our guide to propagating a monstera albo, covering soil, leca and moss methods with step by step instructions and pictures from my propagations.

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What You’ll Need

You will need:

A monstera, big enough to take cuttings from
A sharp knife or scissors
A jar of water
A medium to move it to afterwards (like soil or leca)

See also: Monstera Albo for a full guide to caring for this plant, as well as our other posts: Monstera Thai Constellation.

Step 1:

Get your plant ready, you need to be able to take a cuttings from it with one leaf and preferably leave one or two leaves on the plant. If the plant is really healthy can can take all the leaves and node off it and just leave a stump and it will regrow, if you do this make sure the plant has an established root system and is well watered and healthy before taking the cutting, and it should regrow with no issues.

Step 2:

Take a cutting (or more than one). You need to get one node and one leaf at least for each cutting. A leaf without a node will not grow into a full plant. If you have any cuttings which are just a node and no leaf you can propagate from these, see our section below on ‘wet stick’ propagation.

Step 3:

Leave the cutting aside for 4 or 5 hours as the cut needs to heal over. You definitely want to make sure it has no open wounds when you put it in water as they can go mushy and rot. Make the cut ends are sealed over.

Step 4:

Then put it in water to root. Use a clear jar so you can see root growth. I use filtered tap water, I have a Brita, as cuttings can sometimes be sensitive to really ‘hard’ water.

Step 5:

Put the cutting in indirect sunlight to roots. You want it to be fairly warm as well.

Step 6:

Make sure the water is always topped up to cover the nodes. Change the water if it goes cloudy. Check

Step 7:

It can take up to 2 months to get a good sized root system. Once it is well rooted you can pot it up in soil or leca. You can even keep it in water for a long time, even for ever but it will grow much slower. The roots look amazing on show in a clear jar, as you can see in the picture of my propagations below. See our section below for moving it to soil or leca.

Moving The Cutting To Soil Or Leca

Once the cuttings have rooted well in water you can plant them up into soil or leca, which is really straight forward.

Soil

You can see one of my props below in soil. Make sure the cutting is planted deep enough for the soil to hold the plant up or they can flop over and fall out of the soil. Keep it warm and humid and in indrect sunlight until it takes to the soil and has rooted into it’s new home. Once you get new leaf growth from the cutting you can treat it as a normal juvenile plant.

Leca

I use leca for mine as it is super easy and re-usable so I use soil normally. I wait until it is well rooted in water (like in the image below), then I move it to leca.

Monstera albo cuttings that have rooted in watter.

You want to keep the water from the water propagations then dilute it with the same amount of filtered tap water and then water the leca with it.

Wash the leca a few times and soak it so it is ready to use, then fill the pots up about half way or a bit less. Hold your albo cuttings in place and fill in around them with leca. You need to be careful as they can easily fall out at this stage, so handle with care until they have rooted into the leca.

Normally I want to keep a small half inch / 2 cm level of water at the bottom of the cup. The leca will slowly suck this up and the roots of the plant will take it. But to start with I fill them all the way up and then allow the level to slowly drop. This help the plant transition slowly from water to leca. I use the diluted water prop water I saved for this. Once it has been used up, keep the normal 2cm / half inch level at the bottom of the pot. You can use filtered tap water for this on going.

Once the plant has taken to the leca and is starting to put out new leaves you can start to use a fertilizer. You monstera albo in leca needs a MUCH more diluted feed than if it was in soil. You can try a semi-hydronic feed at this point and use that to feed the plant, make sure it is really well diluted or it can burn the leaves.

Using Sphagnum Moss

You can use sphagnum moss to propagate a monstera albo, you can take your cutting, lets it callous over then put it in a cup of moist moss to root. Make sure the moss is not too wet as that can cause rot. Keep it humid and wait for it to root. You can move it to soil after a few months when it is well rooted and is putting out new growth.

Monstera Albo Wet Stick / Node Propagation

You can propagate a monstera albo with just a node and no leaf. These are sometimes referred to as a wet stick. They are sold as the cheapest way to get an albo monstera sometimes, but be careful as they do not always root and produce a new plant. You can increase your chances of success by using moist moss, but not letting it get too wet. You also want to keep it humid, but allow some air to circulate which will reduce the chances of rot.

Ideally you want the node to be fully sealed over so their is no open wounds, if you have just cut it from the plant then leave it aside for a few hours. Then get cup of moist pre-soaked moss, and squeeze off any excess water. Then put the node on top of it and cover it slightly in a very thin layer of moss, so that it can still get light but it is also kept moist by the moss.

Keep it moist, humid and well lit until it roots and shoots. you can put it in a bag that is taller than the pot and cutting t keep it humid, but keep the top open o that air can still circulate. Check it once or twice a week to make sure it is moist.