Plant Spotlight:The Swiss Cheese Plant

The Swiss cheese plant, A.K.A. Monstera adansonii, is part of the monstera family, this plant is known for its oval-shaped holes throughout the leaves, I noticed the more indirect light it gets the bigger the whole and leaves become. This plant is a vining plant that you can train to go up on a pole or hang naturally like a pothos plant. The photo above shows the plant hanging naturally.

Fun fact, the reason for the holes is due to the fact that they have to compete with others to gain sunlight, so if you see them in the wild, you can see them climbing on rocks, or trees especially to get that sunlight. This adaptation allows the plant to cover more area while not wasting energy on fully developed leaves.

Light Requirements:

From my experience with them, they grow best in bright, indirect light. I think the photo above really shows how bright the area should be where they’re just barely casting a shadow. It can be tricky to figure out what is considered, direct, indirect, bright indirect, etc. so to someone just starting out, keep an eye on your plant, the Swiss cheese is very communicative on what it needs or lacking to you keep an eye on it. for example, if it’s not getting enough light, it might not be producing leaves with many holes in it, or not producing any leaves at all. Not exactly dying but not thriving either.

If it’s getting too much light, it can get a sunburn, some green leaves will look brunt, and it’ll look brown blotches on the leaves, or it'll start to turn a pale yellow.

Unfortunately, once this happens, the leaves won't return to their green unburned state, the best thing to do is to cut them off with scissors as close to the stem as possible and throw them away.  

Temperature Requirements:

Like most plants, they prefer temperatures anywhere from 64-81 degrees (F). now, this is a pretty wide range, if the temperatures are closer to 64 degrees, they will slowly produce leaves. So in the winter if your house is colder, you'll notice they won’t produce as much as they would in the summer.

Humidification Requirements: 

Keep the room anywhere between high humidity for the happiest plant. Personally, I haven’t gotten a humidifier just yet for my plants, and it’s fine, but I’d love to see if there’s a huge difference once I get a humidifier, just how well it does.  

Watering Requirements:  

This is another thing to keep an eye out for because it might be different for everyone, but I notice I need to water this plant more than once a week. I’ve had some in the past that wasn’t this bad, but every three days, in the winter I see the soil is completely dry.

At first, I thought I wasn’t watering it enough, in the winter I can get lazy, and I don’t feel like bottom watering my plants because I have 54 of them and counting. It takes a lot of time, and as a full-time college student, they’re lucky to get watered once a week. But even bottom watering the plant I still notice it dries out a lot sooner than the other plant. This tells me, it’s happy and thriving in the location it is at, it’s getting the light it needs, the temperature is good, the humidity is good, etc. 

 I notice when it needs water because it’ll turn one leaf yellow. And if I let it sit, it'll turn another leaf yellow and another, and so on and so forth. Like I’ve mentioned before they’re very communicative you just have to know what you’re looking for. so when I water it, I try to water it every 3-4 days.

But to start out I recommend once a week just to see how the plant reacts. Remember it’s better to under water than it is to over water!!!  Especially this plant, once it’s overwatered it can have root rot and it’s so hard to save any plant once it has root rot. I’d much rather lose some leaves than the whole plant.