You already know what a fenestrated Monstera leaf looks like. The splits, the holes, that unmistakable Swiss-cheese silhouette — it's probably the most recognizable leaf in the houseplant world. What fewer people know is how to actually get that growth at home. And here's the part that surprises most folks: the evolution behind those holes isn't a Monstera quirk. It's a climbing story — the same one quietly shaping your pothos and your Philodendron. Understanding it is the difference between a plant that sprawls and one that climbs into the fuller, more mature version of itself. For a lot of these plants, a moss pole isn't decoration. It's information.
So let's talk about support — not as a way to prop a plant up, but as something your plant is genuinely asking for.
The holes are a clue
Monstera, pothos, and many Philodendrons are aroids that evolved to climb. In the rainforest, they don't sprawl along the ground for long — they find a tree trunk and head up, toward the light filtering down through the canopy. And as they climb, they change. The juvenile, ground-dwelling version of these plants tends to have small, solid, modest leaves. The mature, climbing version is the one that gets big and dramatic — and, in Monstera, fenestrated.
Why holes, though? The leading explanation researchers point to is about light. In the dense forest understory, sunlight doesn't arrive evenly — it comes in unpredictable patches called sunflecks, brief pools of light that shift through the day. A plant biologist named Christopher Muir proposed that by putting holes in a leaf, the same amount of leaf tissue can span a wider area. Some sunflecks slip through the gaps, sure — but the leaf covers more ground overall, so the odds of catching one go up. It's a way of playing the light lottery with more tickets for the same cost. Researchers have floated other ideas too — that the holes let wind and rain pass straight through the leaf, sparing it from tearing or damage in tropical storms — though those are less settled, which is why we let the light story lead. Either way, the takeaway is the same: these aroids have evolved in remarkably specific ways to make the most of the exact conditions they thrive in. Every odd thing about them is an answer to something in their wild home.
Here's the part that matters for you: this mature, fenestrated growth shows up as the plant climbs. In the wild, climbing and fenestration arrive together. Give one of these plants a surface to climb, and you're not just tidying it up — you're inviting it to grow into the form it evolved for.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole on what these plants look like in their actual habitats, Maria Failla's Growing Joy podcast has a lovely episode with plant explorer Michael Mittermeier all about seeing our houseplants in the wild. It's where a lot of this clicked for us.
It's not just Monstera
This is the part worth sitting with: the climb-to-maturity shift isn't a Monstera thing. It's an aroid thing.
A mature, climbing pothos develops noticeably larger leaves than the small ones you see trailing from a hanging basket — and relatives like 'Cebu Blue' will start to fenestrate as they climb. Philodendrons do their own version. So do less common climbers like Rhaphidophora and Scindapsus — both of which we regularly carry at the shop, alongside many varieties of pothos and Monstera. The leaf shapes differ — your pothos won't suddenly look like a Monstera — but the underlying trigger is the same: contact with something to climb nudges the plant from its juvenile stage toward its mature one.
A quick boundary, so we're being honest: this is specifically a root-climber story. Twining plants like hoyas relate to support differently — for them it's more about having something to wrap around than a growth signal (we get into hoyas here). And trailing plants are a genuine choice — let them cascade or train them up, both are fine. Today we're staying with the root climbers, because that's where support does its most interesting work.
Reading the plant, not following a rule
The nice thing about climbers is that they tell you what they're doing, if you know what to look at. None of these are verdicts — they're just signals, and signals are easy to respond to:
- Leaves staying small, plant sprawling sideways? It's stuck in juvenile mode. It hasn't been given anything to climb.
- Aerial roots reaching out into open air? That's the plant hunting for a surface. (Aerial roots are the stubby roots that emerge along the stem — completely normal, not a problem to fix.)
- Roots gripping onto a damp pole? It found what it was looking for. This is the plant saying yes, this.
- New growth angling toward the window instead of the pole? Light is out-competing the support — usually a sign the spot's a little dim (more on that below).
You don't need to act on every one of these. You're just learning to read the plant in front of you instead of following someone else's schedule.
A damp moss pole vs. a dry stake
Here's a thing nobody tells you when you buy a moss pole: a dry moss pole is basically just a stake.
The whole point of a moss or coir pole is moisture. Those aerial roots we mentioned attach to surfaces that feel like a damp tree trunk — that's what tells the plant this is climbable, grow into me. Keep the pole dry and the roots tend to pass right by it; the pole holds the plant upright but doesn't invite it to do anything new. Keep it damp and the roots grip on, and that's when you start seeing the climbing-stage growth.
You don't have to cut aerial roots, by the way, and you don't have to force them. You can gently guide a reaching root toward the pole and let it decide. Watching one actually take hold is one of the small, quiet pleasures of growing these plants.
Keeping the pole damp (especially when the A/C kicks on)
If you take one watering idea from this post, take this one: read the pole like you read the soil. Not on a schedule — by touch. Check it with a finger the way you'd check whether your plant needs water, and re-wet it when it's dry up top.
Why "up top"? Because that's where it dries first. Water sinks, and the base of the pole stays damp by wicking from the moist rootball, so the top of the pole goes dry well before the bottom — which is exactly the stretch where new aerial roots are trying to attach. So when you water, pour some down from the top of the pole, not just into the soil.
This becomes a real factor in a Hamilton summer once the air conditioning comes on. In lower-canopy neighbourhoods like Gibson and Landsdale, where there's less tree cover to soften the heat, summers get genuinely hot — so A/C isn't really optional here, it's just something we learn to work around. And A/C pulls moisture out of indoor air, so a moss pole evaporates faster in that drier air — a pole that stayed damp for days in spring might dry out in an afternoon in July. It's also worth pulling the plant out of the direct path of an A/C vent; that cold draft dries both the pole and the plant. The diagnostic tell is easy to spot: roots gripping low on the pole but the top left bare usually means the top's gone dry. Re-wet it, sink the base a little deeper into the pot so it draws more from the rootball, and the upper section becomes climbable again.
Light comes first, always
Now the honest caveat, because a pole can't do everything. Support only delivers on its growth promise if there's enough light to back that growth. A moss pole in a dim corner won't conjure big fenestrated leaves out of thin air — without enough light, the plant simply doesn't have the fuel to build something that big. This matters especially through a Hamilton winter, when our light drops off hard and even a bright-feeling room is dimmer than it looks.
So if your climber isn't responding to a perfectly damp pole, look at the light before you change anything else. We've got a post coming soon on how to actually read the light in your space — learning to see it the way your plant does is the thing that makes every other choice easier.
And if you're thinking about feeding to push that new growth along: remember that fertilizer isn't plant food — your plant eats light. Fertilizer is more like a multivitamin, helpful once the light is already there. A gentle one like Kelpy (a cold-processed liquid kelp from a female-owned BC company, which we keep at our refill station) is plenty. Light first, multivitamin second.
What's normal, and what's worth a second look
Most of what climbers do is completely normal, even when it looks a little strange:
- Aerial roots reaching out, or eventually gripping the pole — normal.
- A plant leaning toward the window — normal, just following the light.
- Slow attachment — normal. Some plants take their time deciding.
Worth a closer look:
- A plant that topples or won't stay upright — it wants more secure support, or the pole's too small for its size.
- A plant that flat-out ignores a damp pole over weeks — usually a light issue, or the pole dried out without you noticing.
And the reassuring part: none of this is permanent. You can move the plant, re-damp the pole, swap to a taller one, reposition for better light. There's no single irreversible mistake hiding in here — just a series of small, adjustable choices.
A few gentle missteps (we've all made them)
- Expecting a dry pole to do a damp pole's job. The moisture is the mechanism.
- Tying the stem on too tight. Snug enough to support, loose enough to never bite into the stem. Soft ties, checked now and then.
- Sizing the pole for today. These plants grow into their support — give them room to climb into rather than something they'll outgrow in a season.
- Reaching for a pole when the real issue is light. A pole can't substitute for a brighter spot.
Back to that famous leaf
So those iconic holes everyone admires? They aren't a lucky accident or a decorating feature the plant happens to produce. They're what a climbing aroid grows into when it's given two simple things: light, and something to climb. Your pothos is running the very same program. It's just waiting for the cue.
If you'd like a hand setting that up — figuring out whether your plant's ready for a pole, getting one installed, or reading the light in your space — that's exactly the kind of thing we work through at a Doctor's Appointment. Pole and trellis supports are a pre-approved add-on, so we can sort it out together.
But honestly? You can start this weekend. Find a reaching aerial root, guide it gently onto a damp pole, and check back in a few days to see whether it's decided to hold on. That small moment — a root gripping a surface for the first time — is the whole story in miniature.