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Plants / Araceae / Swiss cheese plant / Leaves not splitting

Swiss cheese plant: leaves not splitting

Why are the new leaves not splitting?

On swiss cheese plant, the likeliest cause is not old enough yet. A young plant with small, entire, heart-shaped leaves and no aerial roots.

Causes, likeliest first for this species 3 checked
  1. 1
    Not old enough yet

    Ranked here because juvenile leaves are entire by default — this is developmental, not a care failure.

    How to tell. A young plant with small, entire, heart-shaped leaves and no aerial roots.

    What to do. Wait. Fenestration arrives with maturity, and no amount of feeding or light brings it forward on a juvenile plant.

  2. 2
    Nothing to climb

    Ranked here because this species climbs, and it only produces adult foliage once it is climbing something.

    How to tell. A plant sprawling sideways rather than upward, with aerial roots hanging free.

    What to do. Give it a moss pole. Climbing species enlarge and fenestrate as they gain height; left flat they stay juvenile.

  3. 3
    Not enough light

    How to tell. A mature-sized plant producing new leaves that are still entire, in a spot well back from any window.

    What to do. An east window, or two to three feet back from a south window. Direct afternoon sun scorches the leaves.

Why that order, for this plant

The ranking above is not a generic list. It is computed from this species' own record — a watering interval of 7–10 days, a tropical understory origin, a humidity floor of 40%, and a light range from medium to bright-indirect. Change those figures and the order changes with them.

That is the whole point of a per-species page. Leaves not splitting on a plant watered every three days and leaves not splitting on one watered every three weeks almost never have the same cause, and a list that ranks them identically is worth nothing to either owner. You can check the reasoning against the care fields on the species entry, which is where these numbers come from.

No percentages appear on this page. We have not run a grower survey, and a confident-sounding figure with no dataset behind it is worse than none. Order and distinguishing tests are what we can honestly give.

What Missouri Botanical Garden records

An independent authority on this species' problems, for comparison with the ladder above.

Watch for aphids, mealybugs, thrips, scale or spider mites.

Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder — Monstera deliciosa. Checked 2026-09-11.

Other problems recorded for this species

Also for this species

Full care entry with light, watering and soil. How to propagate it. Toxicity to cats and to dogs.

Sources

  1. Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder — Monstera deliciosa Pest and disease record. Checked 2026-09-11.
  2. Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Plants of the World Online — Monstera deliciosa Accepted name and family. Checked 2026-09-11.
  3. ASPCA Animal Poison Control — Monstera deliciosa Relevant if a damaged plant is being chewed rather than merely ailing.
  4. This database's own care record for Monstera deliciosa — the watering, humidity and light figures the ranking is derived from.

Compiled and edited by Tony Valcarcel · 2026-09-12
Cause ordering is derived from this species' recorded care requirements, and the derivation is stated above so you can disagree with it. It is not a diagnosis, and a plant can have two problems at once. How this is sourced.