Alocasia
Alocasia
Alocasia spp.
❦ ❧ ❦
Difficulty — IntermediateThere is no such thing as a subtle Alocasia. Whether she arrives as an elephant's ear broad enough to shelter under or as a jewelled little thing no wider than your palm, she enters a room the way a visiting dignitary enters a parlour — arrow-shaped leaves held aloft on upright stems, veins drawn as though someone had inked them in by hand. She is also, it must be said, the houseplant most often declared dead while she is merely resting. Learn her rhythms and she is no harder than a Monstera. Mistake her rhythms for a funeral and you will throw out a perfectly healthy corm. These are my general notes for the genus; each specimen in the collection keeps her own entry besides.
Notes on Cultivation
☀Light
Bright, indirect light — and rather more of it than most people give her. She grew up beneath the broken canopy of the Southeast Asian understorey, which is dappled and bright, not dim. An east window suits her admirably; a south or west window suits her too, provided a sheer curtain stands between her and the afternoon. Direct sun bleaches and scorches those painted leaves. Too little light, and she simply declines to make new ones.
❦Water
Evenly moist, never sodden, never bone dry. Let the top inch or two dry, then water thoroughly until it runs from the drainage hole, and empty the saucer without delay. Her roots rot with remarkable enthusiasm when left standing in water, and a rotting Alocasia gives very little warning before she collapses. Ease off considerably in winter, when her growth slows — the schedule that suited her in July will drown her in January.
☁Humidity
Here is where most Alocasias are lost, so I shall say it plainly: she wants sixty percent or better, and she will tell you at once when she does not get it. Crisping edges, browned tips, and — most tellingly — spider mites, who regard a dry Alocasia as an open invitation. A humidifier, a grouped arrangement, a cabinet, or a well-chosen bathroom will all serve. Misting will not; it flatters the grower far more than it helps the plant.
✵Temperature
Sixty-five to eighty Fahrenheit is her comfort, and she has no interest whatever in anything below sixty. A cold draught, an unheated porch, a windowpane in February — any of these will send her into a sulk or worse. Keep her clear of heating vents as well, which parch her air faster than you would credit.
❧Soil
Airy and chunky, always. An aroid mix of orchid bark, perlite, and coco coir with only a modest share of potting soil gives her roots the oxygen they insist upon while holding a little moisture between drinks. Plain bagged potting soil compacts around her and is the surest road to root rot I know. Pot her snugly rather than generously — a great vault of wet soil around a small root system serves nobody.
❀Fertilizing
She is a hungry thing in her growing season. A balanced liquid feed at half strength every three to four weeks from spring through summer keeps the new leaves large and well coloured. Stop altogether in autumn and winter — feeding a dormant Alocasia only burns roots that are not currently drinking.
✿Propagation
She does not propagate from a cutting, and no amount of hopeful snipping will change that — which is why the signature Fluval Stratum method, so obliging with a pothos or philodendron, has nothing to offer her. She multiplies instead by corm: small firm nuggets that form along her rhizome and which you will discover when you unpot her. Detach the plump ones, nestle them barely buried in damp sphagnum or a light mix, cover for humidity, keep warm, and wait. Weeks, sometimes months. Patience is the whole of the method.
Field Observations
On dormancy, and the premature funeral. Come autumn, an Alocasia may shed leaf after leaf until nothing remains but a bare stub. This is not death; it is a rest she has taken since long before she lived indoors. Move her somewhere warm, cut water back to the barest occasional sip, stop feeding entirely, and leave the pot alone. Come spring she will push a new leaf as though nothing whatever had happened. The Alocasias thrown out each November considerably outnumber the ones that actually die.
One leaf in, one leaf out. Many Alocasias hold only a handful of leaves at a time, retiring an old one each time a new one unfurls. A yellowing bottom leaf on a plant that is otherwise pushing growth is bookkeeping, not illness. Let it go.
Watch for mites. Spider mites are her particular affliction, and they arrive quietly — faint stippling across the leaf, then fine webbing in the crooks of the stems. Turn a leaf over now and again and look. Caught early they are a nuisance; caught late they are a bereavement.
A word of caution. Every Alocasia is toxic to people and pets if chewed, and her sap will irritate skin. Keep her above the reach of curious paws and small hands, and rinse your fingers after pruning.
— faithfully recorded by Mr. Phileas Plant
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