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Why Do Monstera Plants Drip Water? [ 6 Reasons You Didn’t Know ]

Why Do Monstera Plants Drip Water? [ 6 Reasons You Didn’t Know ]

Is your Monstera plant dripping water? Are you unsure of why it is dripping water? Then you’ve come to the right place! You can find the answers to all your queries on why your Monstera might be dripping water from its leaves and what you can do to avoid this.

Monstera plants are a huge family of more than 45 species and belong to the Araceae family, native to the American continent. These are very common ornamental plants and are often used for decoration and as houseplants.

As you may know, Monstera Deliciosa is a popular houseplant, also known as the Swiss Cheese plant due to its abnormally-shaped leaves, which share structural similarities with Swiss Cheese.

This plant is also famous for the tasty fruits it occasionally bears, which gives it the “deliciosa” part of its name due to its delicious taste, compared to that of pineapples and bananas.

Monstera is a wild plant in general and is found across southern Mexico and some South American continents.

Even though water dripping from the leaves of Monstera plants is a common occurrence, guttation is a process that often happens in plants leading to the formation of water droplets on the leaves.

But there are ways to avoid such events. Here’s how and why this happens.

Why do Monstera Plants Drip water?

Here are all the reasons why Your Monstera plant might be dripping water that you may not know :

1. Monstera plants drip after often due to guttation

Monstera plants belong to the Araceae family and are evergreen plants. They do not control their water absorption capacity and fail to understand how much it is required.

Thus due to the excessive amounts of water present in them, they often rely on guttation to get rid of any extra water which is not necessary to them.

Guttation is a biological process that occurs only in plants and helps maintain water saturation and osmotic pressure.

Guttation is necessary for a plant and involves the plant’s xylem responsible for delivering water to various parts of the Monstera plant.

The water is released from the xylems onto the leaves through hydathodes, a component of a plant responsible for maintaining water levels.

The hydathodes, in turn, get to maintain a better osmotic pressure throughout the plants in exchange for releasing water through the leaves.

This is one of the keys and most common reasons for a Monstera plant to drip water and is not a reason to be worried about even though there are possible ways to avoid this, which you can get to know below.


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  1. We explained why do monstera plants have holes here. Check this out

2. Monstera plants drip water to stimulate a suitable growth environment

Monstera plants are native to tropical regions and are habituated to humid environments. On a humid day, it is more likely that you would see water droplets form on the leaves of your Monstera plants.

Due to the moisture present in the surroundings and humidity of the environment, water tends to condense on the leaves of Monstera plants. If your plant does not have sufficient water, it will absorb the water condensed on the leaves.

A Monstera plant needs to receive sufficient water and a suitable environment to stimulate growth in them, and not getting either would lead to deterioration of the plant.

When the Monstera plant receives sufficient water, it can regulate its surroundings by transpiring water to the surroundings to increase the humidity or absorb water from its leaves to maintain a suitable environment.

Monstera plants don’t require additional caretaking other than receiving the correct amount of water to ensure they are neither overwatered nor underwatered.

Only on receiving the correct amount of water, the dripping process of Monstera plants stop, and if you want to know in detail how to achieve that, you can read that below.

3. Monstera plants have lower water absorption potential than the soil

Since the Monstera plants don’t have much water retention capacity in their roots, a pressure difference builds up between the roots and the soil, affecting the plant.

Due to the abnormal pressure conditions of the roots, the plant starts to secrete water from its leaves through its water glands to equalize the pressure difference that has happened.

The Monstera plants are habitants of tropical areas.

Therefore, the soil helps them facilitate better water absorption and helps avoid the problem of water dripping out of the leaves due to sufficient water in the environment.

However, since it is mostly a household part in a home environment, the soil is not competent enough to ensure sufficient moisture is retained to maintain a pressure balance between the plant and the soil.

That initially starts the problem of pressure difference, which leads to the plant losing water to stabilize the pressure difference and maintain a suitable environment.

If the Monstera plant does not do that, it will harm itself and dry up the surrounding soil leading to further complications.

So plants are designed to exude water under certain conditions to maintain a correct pressure difference between their surroundings.


Also read:

  1. Why do people like monstera plants so much? Here are the reasons

4. Transpiration causes water droplets to form on the leaves of Monstera plants

Transpiration is a process that occurs in plants, which is necessary to maintain their osmotic pressure and water levels throughout the plant and is an essential process.

When transpiration occurs, water is released from the plants through their leaves, and it helps the plants maintain their temperature, cool them down, and provide a stable osmotic pressure.

During this, the plant loses water which is initially formed on its leaves and then evaporates.

So if you are seeing water dripping from the tips of your Monstera plant’s leaves, then there is a high chance that it is probably water from transpiration that has yet to vaporize. Transpiration is often considered a necessary evil for plants.

It is a crucial process for a plant’s survival and losing water regardless of the necessity. Sometimes plants even use useful water due to transpiration, which they require to photosynthesize.

Therefore, if you ever see water dripping from the leaves of your Monstera plant during the day, it is most likely that it is caused due to transpiration and is necessary for your plant.

You cannot stop this from happening, but there are ways to minimize the effects of transpiration.

Now that you know what caused your Monstera plants to drip and lose water, here are some tips on how you can avoid that from happening.

5. Water your Monstera Plant properly

Monstera plants are very simple yet complicated.

Not only do they require the correct amount of water, but they also cannot regulate the amount of water they absorb and will keep absorbing any amount of water as long as you keep watering them, even if they don’t have any need for the water.

This leads to various effects like the dripping of water from the leaves and is not good for the plant since this habit of over-absorbing water leads to an early demise of the plant.

Providing the correct amount of water would stop the plant from dripping water from its leaves as well.


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  1. Can you put your monstera plant outside? Will they survive?

6. Taking good care of your Monstera plant

 Monstera Plants need a bit of care and looking after to help maintain themselves. It would help if you took good care of its surroundings and water it regularly after judging the amount of water it would require depending on the humidity of the day.

It might not sound very easy at first, but it is quite easy to do. If you’re a plant enthusiast, it is a walk in the park to take care of a Monstera plant, which is considered the easiest to maintain.

Not only that, but it also adds to your home’s looks and gives you a sweet smell and fresh air in exchange for some water.

As long as you don’t overwater the plant and don’t dry it out as well, then it will continue to maintain your home’s environment without dripping water.

Conclusion

Well, to conclude this topic, here’s a summary of what you know. Monstera Plants are habituated to water dripping from their leaves due to natural processes to maintain themselves and their environment.

These are common occurrences and can be avoided easily without much hassle. All you have to do to stop your Monstera from dripping water is to cut down on the amount of water you supply to it.

Then its water retention capabilities would increase and absorb any condensing water on its leaves, solving your issue of water dripping from the leaves.

Other than that, it is not an issue worth worrying about since your Monstera plant will be healthy and fine as long as you provide it with correct water and some care, regardless of water dripping.