Fruit Salad Plant Monstera deliciosa

Monstera is a scrambling forest vine from Central America, not a shrub, and that shapes everything about it. Stems climb on thick aerial roots that grip whatever they reach, and the deeply cut, holed leaves everybody buys it for appear only once it is climbing and has some size behind it. Grown flat with nothing to hold, it stays juvenile: small heart-shaped leaves, entire, with no windows at all. Indoors it is a feature pot plant; outdoors in the subtropics it climbs a post, a trunk or a shaded wall.

Give it something to climb

Shade to part shade is the requirement, meaning bright indirect light indoors and filtered light or deep shade outdoors in frost-free coastal and subtropical gardens. Direct sun burns pale patches into the leaves. Use a chunky, free-draining mix with bark in it rather than straight potting soil, and keep water moderate, letting the top of the mix dry before watering again. The failure mode is the one nobody recognises as a failure: no support. A monstera left to sprawl in low light will grow quite happily for years and never produce a single fenestrated leaf, and the owner concludes the plant is faulty rather than unsupported. Put in a sturdy stake, a coir pole or a timber slab at planting, and guide the aerial roots into the pot or the mount instead of cutting them off, since the plant feeds and anchors through them. Repot every couple of years, or root prune to hold a set size, since a pot-bound plant slows and its new leaves come through smaller. Two practical warnings: the sap irritates skin, and the fruit is edible only once the tiles of the rind lift and separate, before which it is loaded with calcium oxalate.

Climber or clump

Calathea lutea covers a similar brief, a large tropical foliage plant for a shaded courtyard, but it is a self-supporting clump that needs no structure and no training, and it wants more warmth and shelter to stay presentable. Choose the calathea if you want a standing form and nothing fixed to a wall, and the monstera if you want a plant that will climb and keep going. For a dark, cold, dry corner neither works, and Aspidistra elatior is the honest answer. The rest of the range sits in indoor plants.

Cutting back, and feeding a climber

Prune in the warmer months while the plant is growing, cutting just above a node so the stem can shoot again, and wear gloves because the sap stings. Whole stems can be taken out at the base to control size, whereas shortening every stem at once leaves an awkward plant that takes a season to recover. Cut material roots readily if a node and an aerial root are included. Feed monthly with a balanced liquid fertiliser through spring and summer, or apply a controlled-release product in spring, then ease off as the weather cools. Wipe dust off the leaves so they can work.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 9 sizes, from 66mm Square up to 300mm, priced from $16.95 to $139.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. These are younger plants, priced for planting in quantity, and they establish quickly once in the ground. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to when to plant in Australia.