u/helicoptermedicine

Brought this guy home a little more than a month ago and put it in quarantine with a good grow light. Haven’t had a ton of leaf drop, no signs of pests I can see, but it does have some browning tips.

I went ahead and repotted into a more chunky mix today, because the soil was still moist after several weeks. I cleaned/rinsed off the root ball the best I could, but I didn’t get all the old soil by far. It was super dense, I even found a couple earthworms living their best life (can I put these back in?). Overall the roots looked fine to me? Nothing felt mushy when I was messing with it.

Could the browning tips just be from the soil staying so moist? I want to try to eliminate other things before I move it out into the main area with my other plants.

(Of note, over the weekend the dang thing bent itself over to get closer to the light and it scorched one of its leaves).

I got a monstera from Costco, among other plants. It’s got at least four separate plants in the pot, and the soil stays super moist. I know I need to repot it into a better soil mix, but I’ve never had to separate plants before.

How’s the best way to separate them if the roots are tangled together? How do you determine pot size? I know they’ll need much smaller pots, but I’m still worried I’ll go too big with my nursery pots.

How do y’all clean the roots? I plan on washing them well and inspecting for any signs of rot - some of the leaves so signs of fungal/ overwatering with yellowing/browning. No pests that I can see other than fungus gnats as they’ve been quarantined the past couple weeks.

Really just overall nervous about the ordeal but I know it needs to be done.

Got a few plants from Costco, and I have seen where they can have a lot of pest problems. They stayed at my parent’s house until I could bring them up, so 3-4 weeks at this point.

I brought them in and placed them in my office for quarantine and sprayed them down with dead bug brew and neem oil the past couple days. I also watered with mosquito bits and then emptied out the outer pots again (good amount of standing water at the bottom, and the soil was pretty wet when they showed up).

I noticed some spots on some of the leaves, mostly the monstera. I’ve looked fairly closely and didn’t see anything that looked obviously like pests… but to be honest I’ve only ever dealt with fungus gnats up until this point. I’m wondering if what I’m seeing is pest damage, or just overwatering from their time at my parents (who have drowned several plants over the years).

I haven’t repotted them yet as they’re pretty big plants and I need to get some more things to make a good draining soil mixture.

They also don’t get ideal light in the office, as it’s a north facing window so I have a grow light that should be coming tomorrow.

So thoughts? Also what else do you usually do for quarantine? I’m still fairly new to houseplants.