Where do I cut Monstera for propagation?

Cut on the main woody stem about 1 to 2 cm (half an inch) below a node, the slightly swollen knob where the leaf and the aerial root attach to the vine. Cut higher up on the green stalk holding the leaf, and you get a leaf with a stem on it that will sit in water for weeks doing nothing, because that green stalk (the petiole) carries no rooting tissue. The two cuts can look almost identical from above; one gives you a new plant, and the other gives you compost. Which is why what a node actually looks like, and where its edge stops, is worth getting right before the scissors come out.

How do I find the node on a Monstera stem?

Follow the leaf you want to take back toward the main stem. The petiole is the long green stalk holding the leaf. Ignore it. Where the petiole meets the woody main vine, look for a slight thickening, like a knuckle, that runs around the stem. That's the node. You'll often see two or three things converging at that spot: the petiole going out to the leaf, an aerial root either poking down or already long and reaching, and a tiny pale bump on the opposite side. The bump is the axillary bud (the dormant growth point that becomes the next new shoot). All three are riding on the node.

The petiole, on its own, has none of this. Cut it off the vine and you get a single leaf with a stem on it. It will sit in water for weeks and do nothing.

A clean angled cut about 1 to 2 cm below the node, made with sharp, sterilized shears, gives the cutting a short tail of woody stem to seal over while the node does its work. Including the aerial root next to the node is a nice bonus because it speeds up rooting, but it's not required. The node alone is what roots.

A propagatable Monstera cutting should have:

• At least 1 node (non-negotiable)
• At least 1 leaf, so the cutting can photosynthesize while it roots
• Ideally 1 aerial root attached to or just below the node
• A 1 to 2 cm tail of stem below the node

Why exactly there, and not just below the leaf?

The node is where the plant's auxin (the hormone that triggers root formation) concentrates, and it's where the axillary bud sits waiting. Both the cutting's future roots and the mother plant's future new shoot live inside that one knuckle. A cut taken below the leaf but above the next node down strands the cutting with the leaf, the petiole, and a length of internode (the smooth stretch of stem between nodes), none of which has the cellular machinery to push out roots. That cutting will sit in water and slowly rot.

Did you know? The same node carries the instructions for both root tissue and shoot tissue. Whether you get roots or a new leaf depends on which side of the cut the node ends up on. Below the cut, it stays with the mother plant and pushes a new shoot. Above the cut, it goes with the cutting and pushes roots. One small knob, two completely different jobs, decided by your scissors.

Leaving the 1 to 2 cm of stem below the node matters too. The cut surface needs to heal over, and the node tissue rooting just above it does better when it isn't sitting right at the wound. Too close and the cutting tends to rot from the bottom up before roots get going.

What if the node and aerial root are on different parts of the stem?

On older Monstera vines, aerial roots sometimes sprout a few centimeters away from a node, out along the internode. When that happens, prioritize the node. Always cut below a node, even if it means leaving an aerial root behind on the parent plant. The aerial root by itself can't root the cutting. The node can.

Once you start cutting longer vines, you'll hit a different choice. A length of stem with three or four nodes on it can be taken as one cutting or sectioned between each node into several single-node cuttings. The first gives you one fuller plant; the second gives you several smaller plants from the same chop. Which way to go depends on what you actually want out of the cut.

For a first propagation, take the whole length as one cutting. Once you've watched the process work, sectioning becomes lower-risk because you already know what a node looks like when it's about to push roots.

What happens to the parent Monstera after I cut?

The cut doesn't damage the mother plant in any meaningful way. Within a few weeks, the axillary bud at the node just below your cut wakes up and starts to push out a new shoot. Often you'll get two new growth points where there used to be one, since the buds on either side of the cut have less competition for resources. The plant ends up bushier, not weaker.

Make the cut on the parent just above the next node down, leaving a short tail of stem (the same 1 to 2 cm rule, in reverse) above that node. A long stub of bare stem above the last node will brown back and die off on its own, which looks worse than it is but is worth avoiding.

Once the cutting is rooted and potted, the original aerial roots stay coarse and ropy while the new water-grown roots look thinner and paler, and you can trim the dried-back aerial roots off the potted cutting without harming the plant. A mother plant that's throwing aerial roots all over the stem is also a plant that's ready to be propagated heavily, since each one of those roots is marking a node you could chop below.

A clean cut below a node doesn't subtract a plant from your collection. The node above the cut goes on to grow roots in water. The node below the cut wakes up and pushes a new shoot on the parent. The same knuckle of tissue, split in two by your shears, ends up running two separate plants from one.