Growing Monstera Bulbasaur From Tissue Culture 🧪| 5 Month Update

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Hello you guys. Welcome back to my channel. I'm Melissa. If you're new here, I'm making a series on my Monstera Bulbasaur tissue culture. The last update was day 90 and I was very happy with the progression of that plant at that point. I felt like it was doing very well from tissue culture and I was super excited to see the growth that I was going to get next. I'll show you what it's looking like currently. But before that, I'll kind of backtrack a little bit. So, after day 90, I put the plant back in my IKEA Milzo, that's where I had it. And I moved it out probably a week and a half ago when I painted this room and rearranged a bit.

[00:00:40]And it's getting a prime spot in front of my south window, which I think it's going to absolutely love the bright light. I honestly think it would love staying in the cabinet as well, but I wanted to go ahead and take it out because that's officially an allocation cabinet now. And I didn't really have enough room for it, honestly. So, I just wanted it to go by the window cuz it's the best light that's in here. So, at day 90, I remember in that video it was working on a new leaf, but it hadn't unfurled yet. I thought the variegation was really good on it. I was really happy with it. The root system was doing well um growing in cuz we had repotted it at day 90 as well. So, we upsized it from the little pot that I had it in. I think it was a 3 in and we went up to a 4 in. And so, every week when I came in here and watered my cabinet, I would check the plant. It was drying out a little bit faster. I had mentioned a little bit sooner than every week, but I was trying not to overdo it cuz the mix that I have it in isn't quite necessarily like my chunky chunky airid mix. It has more cocoa core, which can hold moisture for a lot longer. So, I had to be careful on watering. I didn't want to like overdo it. But, I potted it into a clear pot so I could monitor the roots. And I felt like it was handling about every 6 7 days of watering.

[00:01:55]Sometimes when I went to go water it, it was completely dry, but um it wasn't dry to the point where it was wilting or anything like that. It wasn't like severely underwatered. I started off initially just doing half strength of my nutrient mix. And then since day 90, I've been giving it pretty much full strength nutrients every time I water.

[00:02:13]So, it's been getting a pretty good amount of nutrients every week. And I use silica, um, foliage pro, extra calme, I use a water conditioner, and then I do adjust pH. Um, that's my nutrient regimen that I use on all my plants. So, it was in my cabinet for a while, and then I forget at what day it started to push a new leaf, but I thought it had pushed it quite fast after the last leaf. I noticed it was pushing a new leaf spike. And I'm like, it seemed thicker. It seemed like a bigger leaf. And like when it was unfurling, I knew I'm like, "This is going to be a giant leaf." So, it is March 29th, end of March, and I think I'm going to get a penration on the newest leaf here. So, yesterday I actually took a little bit of um a clip.

[00:02:59]So, I was watering her in my cabinet and the oldest leaf yellowed off. So, I just removed it and I gave her a good drink.

[00:03:06]And you guys, the root system that is growing in on this plant is insane. We had upsized her. It hasn't even been two weeks, I think. But look at all those roots. Look how happy she is growing.

[00:03:20]And the newest leaf is intense, you guys. Like, it's a pretty strong leaf coming out of here. And do you see what I see? I'm pretty sure there's a fenistration right here. You can see the where the split is right there. Do you see that right there? Which is so exciting. And I can tell the leaf has a really good color, too. It has like a good balance of color. This is the leaf that had fully hardened. Um, this one was hadn't unfurled all the way since the last update. So, there's the front and then the back is very pretty as well.

[00:03:54]Beautiful. And then this leaf was sticking up like that. I had her really close to the growite and so she's back down a bit more. And then she's still holding on to those leaves. I did move her down from the top in here to the middle shelf. though she's I would say now a little over a foot away from the grow light where before she was like not even an inch away from the grow light.

[00:04:17]She was definitely getting um really intense light up there. So the light is above her so you can see her leaves are kind of growing up towards the light. And I want her to eventually face forward cuz I want to grow her where her leaves are like front facing.

[00:04:35]So eventually um I think what I'm going to do is take her out of my cabinet probably um next month cuz what I want to do is well I plan on rearranging my room in here. I want to get her in front of my south window. I think she would really take off this summer in there but I don't want to put her in my window in front of my window until I rearrange and I'm doing that probably in the next four to six weeks. I want to try and work on this. I'm painting and everything in here is going to look completely different.

[00:05:03]But yeah, I just wanted to pop on and give you like a real time update on how she's doing. But I'm excited. I think I probably have another month to go before I update like officially again because I was going to do 120 days, but I decided to wait to do 150 days, which would be two more months from the last update and then another it'd be 5 months. This plant is 5 months out from tissue culture at that point. But right now, she's only not even four months out from tissue culture. So, she's growing very well. I'm very excited that I had my first split already. So freaking excited.

[00:05:39]Post that leaf once it hardened off. I felt like the time from that to the new leaf wasn't that long. And so when I was watching it every few days when I came in here and I'm like, this is going to be a crazy leaf. And then when it actually unfurled and you can see it actually had not one but three three fenestrations, which is absolutely crazy. So, it's spit out a huge massive leaf and I think it's just a combination of being in a really controlled warm environment. Um, it hasn't been getting a ton of extra humidity just because humidity with the air conditioning in here isn't. It's usually like 50 give or take. Um, in the cabinet it's not that much higher cuz this one isn't weather stripped. So, humidity is like pretty much 50s in there as well. Um, but I just feel like getting good light and warm conditions and obviously the nutrients every week definitely contributed to the big jump in size and then obviously we uppotted it. So, I feel like it was just a combination of things. Normally when I repot sometimes I feel like the new leaf comes in a little bit smaller until it kind of figures itself out and then it starts to size up again. But this one definitely uh enjoyed the upsize. It just fit out like this huge leaf. Hello guys. I I was filming an update and my camera shut off. So now I have to do it all over again, but that's okay. Um, so today is Tuesday, April 14th. My mind is so scattered with everything. I have so many progress videos like going on and then everything with this room. I feel like yeah, my mind is just all over the place. But I want to show you an update on Bulbasaur because its new leaf is unfurling and I have not one, two, but three ofations on the new leaf. Like look at that.

[00:07:29]That is insane.

[00:07:32]Um here's the root system.

[00:07:37]Looks pretty good. Feel like this guy is a strong monster already. I feel like it's doing so well it being it's probably like around 120 days now since deflasking which is crazy to me. Like this guy is doing so well. I can't wait to see the next leaf though. So I'm going to update at day 150 like I said. So hopefully I get a new leaf before then. I might not though. We'll see cuz I mean I feel like it's growing pretty fast but this one isn't fully hardened off yet. So, I'm going to leave him back at the window here. And then I will see you back for um another update at day 150.

[00:08:16]So, yeah. And then, like I said, probably like a week and a half or so ago, we I redid this space and then it's been at the window ever since. And it's like maybe 6 in from the window. So, it's getting on days like today, it's very cloudy in here, so it's not getting a ton of light. Um, but when the sun is out, it's definitely getting, you know, a good amount of light on its leaves.

[00:08:38]So, I feel like it's going to really do well here at the window. And I'm so excited to see how it does over the next couple months. I'm excited for the next update. Um, so let me go ahead and grab it and I'll show you how it's looking currently.

[00:08:55]Look at that leaf. That is crazy, right?

[00:09:00]Crazy. This plant was a tissue culture five months ago in a little baggie. So, it still has those. And then it still has this leaf here.

[00:09:10]I still remember when it put this leaf out. That's crazy. And then the next leaf was here.

[00:09:17]And I still remember this leaf coming out. And then this is the leaf that hadn't unfurled in day 90, but I could tell it was like a pretty good leaf with that variegation. And then it did jump up quite a bit in size. Like you could see the leaf before.

[00:09:32]Like that's a pretty good leaf size jump I feel like.

[00:09:37]So that one hardened off to that. And then again this leaf like post repot.

[00:09:44]This is my hand. It's already bigger than my hand which is crazy. I was not expecting fenestrations already. And I love that variegation already.

[00:09:56]Such a gorgeous, gorgeous monstera.

[00:10:00]And so when I did the room update in here last week, I had felt like this, you know, was getting ready to pop soon.

[00:10:07]It just took a little bit longer than I thought. I thought it was going to pop sooner than what it did, but it finally popped. I was really hoping this would emerge more by the time, you know, this video went up. So, like I said, it's May 2nd, so I have five more days technically before I post this, but I need to like have this video done before. So, I guess in four more days, I will pop like maybe an image on here of what this has done in that time.

[00:10:35]But obviously, I can't see how big it's going to be yet. I can't see the variegation or anything on it. So, I'm very like excited. It's growing so quickly. I feel like even the pedals.

[00:10:46]Like look how pretty the pedals are.

[00:10:50]Let me um take it out of this pot here.

[00:10:53]Yeah. Do you see that color on the the pedals? Like that is so pretty. Even this new leaf, it's like all white pretty much.

[00:11:04]So yeah, I feel like that's going to be a pretty good pretty good leaf size. I'm excited to see this one. Um and then root system. Like I said, I just watered it yesterday.

[00:11:15]And you know, we potted it up to this size last time. So, I feel like it's grown in a ton of new roots. Like, look at that big root.

[00:11:26]Very healthy root system. So, it's going to stay in this 4 in for a while. I don't plan on up potting it or anything for the time being. I want it to get like pretty rooted in here.

[00:11:40]Oh, did I say November 9th? I deflasted it on December 9th. I I ordered it on Black Friday, which was November, but yeah, root system is really good.

[00:11:52]And it's just crazy that I have this plant from Tissue Culture that is this size already. Like, that's crazy to me.

[00:11:59]I still can't get over it. I really can't. It's going to be a big monstera.

[00:12:05]It's already growing a new root down into like this aerial root is down in the substrate. That's this big guy here, that big aerial root. And then it's pushing another one like right here. So, that one's going to grow down into the substrate as well.

[00:12:21]So, there's really no need to add a support yet cuz the aerial roots are like growing down. So, eventually, I guess as it starts to climb up or is it It kind of looks like it's wanting to crawl a little bit. That's interesting.

[00:12:36]um very tight inner node spacing so far.

[00:12:38]It really hasn't grown much, you know, but yeah, this aerial root is definitely going to grow down into the substrate.

[00:12:45]So, that'll be more roots down here, which will definitely help the leaf size up.

[00:12:53]I just can't get over how big this leaf is already. It's so crazy.

[00:12:58]I saw these for $10 the other day on their website. Um, Orange Lake Nursery.

[00:13:04]It's crazy. I paid 111 maybe, but with shipping and winter protection, I think I paid like 130 something for this and now they're like $10, 5 months later.

[00:13:18]So crazy.

[00:13:21]So yeah, at that price, if you like Monstera and you want to grow from TC, in my experience, mine has done very well from TC. I haven't had any issues at all with this guy. It's done very very well. I feel like it's going to be a crazy plant in the next update. So, I'll probably do se I'll probably do updates every 2 months until we get to the year mark. So, I'll probably do So, this is 5 months. I'll probably do an update at 7 months, which is two more months from now. So, yeah, we'll do an update two more months from now at 7 and then at 9 months and then at 12 months for the full year. I feel like that year is going to be crazy. So, I'm excited.

[00:13:57]And then after the year, then I'm not going to do another update on it at that point. It'll probably be just for the first year, unless you want one at like a year and a half or something.

[00:14:11]Beautiful. So, yeah, that is the update on that guy. And it's been fun to watch the progress on it and everything. So, thank you guys for following along. for those that have watched, you know, from the initial setup and everything. I hope all of you that got one, all of yours are doing well and growing well for you.

[00:14:29]So, yeah, I will see you back here in another couple months for another update at month seven and we'll see what he's looking like.