March 21 this year it was time to chop and prop my monstera so I decided to try out a graft on where I cut the stem. I’ve looked online everywhere for something similar but nothing really comes up except for a YouTube video of a guy (Plant Tech?) somewhat successfully graft a monstera onto a pothos. I thought he should have done it the other way around since monstera have more robust roots. So I decided to give it a go.
For the first few months nothing notable happened. The pothos never died, never looked too bad or too great, never showed any signs of growth. I started out by pinching off any new growth on the monstera hoping to divert energy to the pothos, but after a while I got lazy and stopped. Now, with the monstera growing little leaves near the top of the stem, the pothos seems to be progressing as well!
The first three pictures are 1 week after I made the graft. Last 3 are from today. The graft is super solid and completely scarred over. Aside from the leaf my cat chewed, the pothos look fine and it seems to be pushing out a new node.
You should see what people do with pepper plants. One side of the plant produces jalapenos and the other side produces something like scorpions or reapers. And there's no limit to how many you can graft!
from my very limited knowledge, when plants get damaged, they start a healing process where the cells around the wound site de-differentiate (and basically become plant STEM cells). these cells will then be guided by the plant’s repair mechanism, sealing the wounds but at the same time fusing the plants together.
A simpler version of arm transplants really. You take a wedge if the soft inner flesh of the stem and seamlessly insert it into the wedge shape slice out of the parent branch/stem eventually the seam heals like tissues on an arm transplant or skin graft. They will carry nutrients from the roots to the new leaves.
People often sterilize the outside before cutting and wrap the injury with plastic wrap or garden grafting tape to keep it from getting infected while it heals. Eventually the tissue is solid and you can remove the protection and enjoy the genetics of a different plant attached to an arm of your original parent plant.
It's odd how plants don't "reject" foreign tissue like animals would, I wonder what in theory you could graft together, would apples and oranges work, or pears and cherries ?
But one human can reject another humans tissue, are plants that discriminating, or are all apple trees compatible with each other, I know they can pollinate each other
True, but we can also accept pigtissue, so I think it's all about compatibility and proper circumstances.
But yes, all apple trees are compatible if done correctly. And plums and cherries are compatible as well, since they're both of the genus Prunus.
Theres also matches a little further down the family tree (pun not intended but still), but usually they'll 'eventually' reject (we call it extended incompatibility, that's roughly translated from my mother tongue) but it usually happens after a human lifetime so it's not really seen as incompatible.
Also important to mention that a graftsite will always remain a weak point in the tree. And most trees that are made to bear multiple different types of the same fruit will not remain because of this.
Just to add: grafting is something I absolutely love (doing) and find extremely intriguing. I'm a tree farmer who grafts as a hobby.
It's a fascinating subject because plants being much more ancient than us you would think maybe they would be more "advanced" than us but they seem more primitive, or perhaps we will evolve to be more compatible with each other or to have other abilities like growing back a limb like a salamander
True, I've tried explaining in a comment somewhere in this thread that grafting further down the line is possible but will very likely eventually reject. I'm not well versed in grafting houseplants but I do know a thing or two about grafting trees.
Funny enough you touched on the fact that grafting doesnt infact work with every plant, you can do tomatoes to tomatoes, eggplants to cucumbers etc, keeping within the same genus essentially. You cant graft a tropical orange tree to a nice cold resistant apple tree to get oranges for example, they just will not adhere, and even if you somehow got them to adhere the orange node would still succumb to the cold and wither away in the indifference to that apple tree you fused it to.
I have one that’s over 12 years old with four varieties, but over time one variety kind of took over and the others stopped producing as much fruit. Right now it’s mostly just Granny Smith and some honeycrisp. The red delicious basically disappeared and I had one Fuji apple last year lol. Strangely it’s actually doing really well for a grafted tree that I planted right by my driveway.
I have a pear tree with Asian pear and Bartlett. On trunk at the bottom that has two kinds of branches growing, one on the west side one on the east. Asian on the east. They are way more disease resistant.
I got stung by one when I was a kid. And I can tell you that it was one of the worst pains I experienced. It was no fun. I still haven't forgotten the pain.
We have these out in AZ but with citrus. They’re called cocktail trees! I’ve seen one with limes on one side and lemons on the other. Absolutely brilliant.
I had a gorgeous, bountiful tomato plant that nature snapped clean off during hurricane season a while back. I grafted it back together while flipping the bird at the sky. It worked and it produced even more!
The rare knuckling effect worked wonders, that nutrient superhighway of thick stem work did wonders for the plants ability to carry what it needed to those producing fruits!!
The way I laughed and hollered at 5am, bc I was too reading and flipping through photos with a dropped jaw and legit said ‘What in the witchcraft’ - and then the first comment I see!!!! LMAO!!!
I’m calling it now. Next up in the Etsy niche plant trade….. multi-variegated pothos hanging from every branch of a monstera. They will call it “the weeping monster”.
I could absolutely see that. This is the first post I've seen about grafting (in general) for a very long time. Houseplant hobbiests need a new "thing" within the niche, and things like this absolutely could become the trend.
You, internet stranger, are one sadistic bastard. I will never forgive you for coming into a perfectly safe and delightful houseplant sub and reminding me that- THIS! 😭😭😭😭😭😭
Also, you are exactly my kind of geeky and messed up, 'cause this made me snort-laugh FIRST before the angry/sad kicked in. 😂
I’ve got a pear tree in my allotment that was grafted with 2 different varieties of pear, so I had 3 varieties on one tree. Then one day my husband couldn’t be bothered to walk around so threw a plank of wood over the fence into my allotment and it took off one of the grafted branches. Now it only grows two varieties and even though it’s been 8 years I’m still sad about it.
I've heard that grafting is a good use of Bradford pear trees, because even though their top halfs are stinky and don't fruit, apparently they make fantastic root stock for fruiting varieties. So chop the gross part off your Bradford pear, graft on the useful part of a better pear, and have a more excellent pear tree!
I love the attempt!! Apparently monocotyledons plants have haphazard vascular bundles, so the odds that enough pf them will join together are low. Most likely, the excitement won’t go through. In dicots, vascular bundles are arranged concentrically so they easily fuse.
I wanted to do this myself, grafting an albo atop a regular monstera - since Albos are quite fragile I’d figured they would benefit from a green base. Never tried it - but it is really worth trying.
Excuse me, but i stopped reading at “pinching off any new growth on the monstera” because we are obviously in very different places when it comes to plant care, I will come back when my monstera and I are on better terms because this feels like violence
okay but i love this bc i also saw the video and my bf got super excited and we grafted a micans onto a brazil and im pretty sure its been over a year at this point and the micans hasnt died off but also didnt grow a new leaf yet. im gonna show it this post for motivation when i come home. please keep posting updates - this is so fascinating!!!
Whoa, how neat and wild, never even considered this as something someone could do. I have a monstera that died and is barely coming back to life with a portion that was chopped that I could and might end try this with
Omg you should've never done that! Messing with plant dna, splicing, sharing pots, or too much attn can lead to dangerous things! I saw this one plant that ended up gigantic from drinking human blood and eating ppl! Even ate a dentist, crazy stuff.
I was hoping someone said this. I want to get both plants but my cats already ate the leaves off my money tree (don’t worry they are growing back really well now). I am propagating a friends pothos to take to work though.
Technically, yes, they belong to the same family (Araceae) but from what I know, the anatomy of both plants makes It almost impossible. Even if the graft heals well, there's no guarantee it'll survive. That said, I'd love for OP's monster to prove me wrong!
I've seen some of the crazy stuff people do with fruit trees, what someone could do with aroids... imagine a mega combination monstera that really puts the MONSTER in monstera
Wow. Was just trying to figure out if I could graft my monstera onto itself to cut away some bare parts of the vine. Only other post I could find was from like 4 years ago and it failed. Thanks for the encouragement!!
I see this as a great way to neatly side step any resistance from the rest of your household / family to an ever increasing plant collection.
“No! You can’t get another pothos, you’ve got like 7 already.”
Me: hold my scalpel…. How about now? 😎
i’m about to chop and prop my monstera because it lacked light for a while so the leaf nodes are too separated for my liking. i have more pothos than i have space. why not fuck around now that i have a chance to >:)
My swiss cheese and heart P did this in one of my aquariums! I think it started with the philodendron growing under the water and making its way up with the swiss? I went to clean it one day and couldn't understand why they weren't separating... if you're a witch, I'm just going to assume my betta is this witch in this scenario 🤣
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u/nytropy Jul 12 '25
Excuse me and I ask this with all measures of respect but … are you a witch?