The variegated Monstera Albo Variegata Borsigiana, the IT plant of 2019 and 2020. The most desired rare houseplant on social media. It is everywhere, everybody wants it and not a lot of people can get it. This plant is not a rare plant, it is simply in very high demand right now. Cuttings from a variegated Monstera is basically gold dust for a seller. Shops have waiting lists for these plants. It is without doubt the most sought-after plant right now.
So, when it comes to selling cuttings of these plants most sellers will usually sell 1–2 cuttings rooted in moss or other medium and it will be sold to you in that way. You should be getting an areal root or at least some form of root. You can buy full plants, but they are not very common. You would have to be lucky to find one in your local nursery. Generally, there are a lot of great sellers that are selling good quality cuttings of the variegated Monstera. The problem is that there is no way to keep up with the current demand.
People will go to extreme lengths to get their hands on these plants. There are many traps you can fall into when looking to buy these plants as scammers are using a buyer’s lack of knowledge of how this plant grows and how variegation in plants work. People have paid up to $200 for a stem of a variegated Monstera without a node from which the plant would actually be able to grow from. Meaning that people are paying up to $200 for something that could never grow into an actual plant.
Here is a list of things you need to be aware of before buying a Monstera Variegata.
1. Cuttings of leaves with limited variegation
Many people expect to get that bright white chunky coloration on their variegated Monstera. It is important to understand how the variegation works in order to make an informed decision when buying a cutting. The variegation on a Monstera Albo is a mutation that the plant will try to correct. That means that the plant might start to produce less and less variegation over time and finally turn completely green again. Therefore, when browsing for a Monstera cutting you need to be aware of that the cuttings with leaves with a small amount of variegation, or cuttings that are from a variegated Monstera but are all green will most likely never produce that half moon look or a mainly white leaf. On the other hand, a cutting with only white or 80–90% white leaves will struggle to propagate as the leaf is not really giving enough energy to the plant but rather taking energy from it. Therefore, when looking for a cutting for a variegated Monstera look for one that has a decent 50/50 share of white and green coloration. This will give you a healthy and easily propagated plant as well as the possibility to produce more white leaves in the future.
2. Sub-par cuttings
These are not a scam per se, they are viable, but they are not good quality. Examples of this could be a cutting with no root growth and no areal root included as these cuttings will be quite difficult for the buyer to propagate and the buyer will most likely fail and end up with a dead cutting instead of a new plant. The cutting might also have some rot on the stem which will be shown on a photo as a black area on the cutting. If the cutting has rot around the node the cutting will be absolutely useless. Another thing to look out for is the state of the leaves. If they are brown and burned, then the cutting will be quite hard to propagate.
3. Monstera Variegata seeds
This is a complete scam. You can not get variegated Monstera seeds. The variegation in these Monsteras isn’t even passed to seeds. You can not produce variegated Monstera in this way. The only way you could be able to produce a variegated Monstera is by buying a cutting from an already variegated plant or if your normal Monstera is showing these signs of mutation, but this is a 1:100 000 chance of this. The variegation happens in the plant during the course of the plant’s lifetime. People that have bought seeds have ended up with anything from unrelated plants to seeds that do not grow anything and it even happen that people will get tobacco or pieces of wood instead of seeds.
4. Wet sticks
This is easier to get fooled on as it looks like a variegated Monstera stem, but the issue is that these stems do not have a node and without a node you cannot get any growth from this. In order to grow a new plant from a mother plant you need a node. It is the most important part of the propagation cutting. You need a node, you need somewhere from which the plant will grow a leaf and roots. However, still the recommendation is to buy a plant cutting with at least one healthy leaf, an areal root and of course a node.
You will see people selling all the above on websites like Ebay, Etsy, Amazon, and Facebook marketplace. There are a lot of grifters in the plant world. These are just some issues specific to the variegated monstera, but scammers have gone so far as to painting on paint on a plant and pretending it is a new species. Be aware and do your research if you plan to buy a highly sought after or rare plant.
