Your MASTERCLASS
Known as Swiss cheese plant or split-leaf philodendron, Monstera deliciosa has a name as impressive as the plant itself. The deeply indented and holed leaves of mature specimens are supposedly monstrous and fruits (though rarely produced in our homes) are delicious if you know how to eat them.
This popular, easy-care houseplant has its origins in the humid, tropical forests of that narrow strip of land stretching from Southern Mexico to Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama that links North and South America. Having germinated, young plants mooch about on the forest floor until they find a tree to climb.
Clinging with aerial roots, they head for the canopy.
Some twenty years ago, I was handed a cheese plant that had belonged to my husband’s late mother. I started it again from a cutting and the resulting plant has been living in our sitting room for the last fifteen years.
We dangle decorations from it at Christmas time and family members are used to reading or watching tv from beneath its magnificent leaves. Young plants bear smaller, entire juvenile leaves but those of mature specimens are indented, with twenty or more holes. In the wild, aerial roots help cling, climb, anchor and absorb water and nutrients.
From a single stem snaking from a 13in (33cm) wide pot, our plant has sent roots 10ft (3m) in one direction and 15ft (4.5m) in the other.
Some cling to the skirting board, others spread out under a sofa and newer ones dangle fro
