Monstera Standleyana (Cobra), a spectacular and slow growing plant, is the most difficult plant I saved so far.
About a year ago I received a clipping for free from a nice fellow plant enthusiast. Propagation from clippings is not a very tricky process, as long as the culture tissue is young and healthy. My clipping checked none of this boxes, but back then I was young and naive.
Although it was severely dehydrated, I simply placed it in water and waited to develop roots. It regained a bit of strength, but no other progress. I believed it might do better in soil, with strict monitoring for humidity and potted the little beauty. After a while, my Standleyana just refused to gain any more strength and I started to worry all my attempts would be futile.
Later I took her out of dirt and to my disappointment, it started rotting. I cleaned all the damaged parts and noticed the leaves were starting to gain an ugly yellow. That was the moment I went a bit radical and cut it to pieces, removed all the leaves and placed it in a closed container with moss. I was lucky enough to have a few nodes intact (a node is the bump on the stem where leaves or roots grow from).
Only one of the wet sticks survived and grew a new tiny plant. I kept it in moss until the baby Monstera got to about 2 cm and slowly accommodate it to the open environment. Eventually I moved it in a tiny pot with aroid mix.
Monstera Standleyana is doing well now, survived the winter and is slowly growing new tiny leaves.
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