Accidentally cooked my mini monstera with a grow light I left on for 72 hours

I got one of those cheap $25 Amazon full spectrum lights for my monstera peru last month and left it on over a weekend trip. Came back Monday morning and the top leaves were all crispy and brown, like they got sunburned. Learned the hard way that these things need a timer or at least a 12 hour max, even if they say "full day" on the box. Anyone else melted a plant with a budget light setup?

2 comments

2 Comments

alice_kim14h agoTop Commenter

Oh man, I feel your pain on that "full day" thing. I got a similar budget light off Amazon for my pilea and thought leaving it on for a long weekend would be fine too. Came back to the same crispy top leaves like yours. I was so bummed because that little plant was doing so well before. Now I use a simple outlet timer I found at the hardware store for like eight bucks. It's been a game changer, seriously, just set it to 10 hours and forget it. Your mileage may really vary with those cheap lights, in my experience they put out way more heat than you'd expect. Hope your monstera bounces back from the ends, they're tough little plants.

leo61214h ago

Yeah, that's life with cheap stuff. Always hiding a catch.