Hello! Newbie here (forum and having houseplants). I’ve been growing my Monstera plant for a good 6 months now and it seems to be going well. Up until a few weeks ago two new leaf growth didn’t uncurl and just broke off. I’m not sure if maybe this weird mold like substance on top of the soil has something to do with it. I water this plant once a week. Is that too much? Could that be causing the mold?
There are so many places I could move this thread, finally decided on the Houseplants forum, but it could be in the Araceae forum, or in the Fungus, Lichens and Slime Molds. I'm paging @Frog to have a look from the fungus aspect.
The fungus is apparently quite common in houseplant containers. They seem to make an appearance in mine when conditions are just right. I just scoop them out. The broken plant parts appear to be from physical damage. Do you have a pet that might be nibbling on your plant? Detail information on this plant: Monstera deliciosa Liebm., Monstera deliciosa, Exotic Rainforest rare tropical plants. (The site appears to be offline at the moment but you can access a cached version from a search engine like Google or Bing.)
Mold can only thrive in wet conditions. Actually, in a too wet condition. If the pot is in a jardinière, that is a decorative pot without a drain hole the bottom you can build up a pool of water in the bottom that is refreshed by you too often. Smell the soil. If the odor is offensive, that is a sign of too wet. Good dirt just smells like dirt. Most houseplants need to cycle between wet, dry, wet, dry, ad infinitum to be happy. Touch the soil surface before watering and only deliver 15 to 20% of the soil volume of water each time it is dry to the touch, maybe once a week or so. Stand back and look at the leaves and try to notice what their normal position is. They will droop when dry. Water then. Drooping is not an emergency sign, just a sign that it is dry. Being too dry too long is better than being too wet too long. Much better.
The pot definitely has drainage holes. One of the first advice I got was to make sure my pot has those. I’ve never really seen the leaves drooping at all and I do try to not water too often. I water once a week but maybe that’s still too often. I’ve never tried to smell the soil but I will check tomorrow. Thank you!!!
No pets in the house. That is what was really puzzling me because it looked like they were from physical damage. I wish I took a picture when those leaves broke off.
Although mold identification requires microscopy, some typical houseplant soil genera are Trichoderma, Aspergillus and Penicillium.
