Alocasia Polly Care Guide

Alocasia Polly is a famous houseplant native to South Asia. While they grow small with pale flowers, they are grown for their glossy heart-shaped leaves 🙂. The foliage has ruffled edges with a spectacular creamy white veining. 

You can cultivate Alocasia Polly year-round indoors. A note of warning is that this plant is toxic to humans and pets.

Alocasia Polly Care Guide Table

Alocasia Polly Care 

The care for Alocasia Polly is relatively easy as it is an easy-growing plant. Please place it in a spot with dappled light, high humidity, warm temperatures, and moist soil.

Note:

Like most elephant ear plants, the Alocasia Polly is invasive in wetland areas like the Gulf Coast. So, before planting your Polly, please consult with the state-local extension to check if it is invasive. Or you can keep it growing indoors.

Best Potting Mix

Provide your Alocasia Polly with well-draining soil, whether grown indoors or outdoors. This keeps the soil airy and allows the water to drain away from the roots to prevent root rot. So, the soil must be moist but not soggy.

How to Water Alocasia Polly

The soil needs to remain moist but not soggy. So, finding a delicate balance is essential to prevent root rot and too-dry soil leading to dormancy. Avoid getting the foliage wet when watering, as it can lead to plant diseases. During winter, refrain from watering your plants and only water when the topsoil dries.

Ideal Lighting

Provide your Alocasia Polly with bright, indirect light in an east-facing window. If you have a bright space, use sheer curtains to filter the harsh sunlight and help protect the leaves from burning. Direct sunlight will leave the plant’s leaves looking pale and washed out.

Temperature Requirement

Provide your Alocasia Polly with temperatures above 65 degrees Fahrenheit to thrive. Standing in lower temperatures will kill your plant, which is best kept out of drafty and cold areas. The ideal environment is one with high humidity levels, like the bathroom.

Alternatively, you can group your plant with other moisture-loving plants.

Fertilizer

You can fertilize Alocasia Polly during the growing season using an organic houseplant fertilizer. Dilute it to half-strength and use it every two weeks in spring. You can then stop fertilizing as summer ends.

Pruning Alocasia Polly

The tropical plant is a slow-growing plant indoors and needs no pruning. You only trim your plant when you want to shape or control the growth.

You can cut back damaged or dead leaves in the growing season to put out energy for new growth. Remember to use sterilized shears or pruners and cut the leaves back to the stem.

A good idea is to cut back spent flower heads to promote healthy growth.

Propagating

You can only propagate Alocasia Polly when it grows from two bulbs and has two leaves using division. So, if your mature plant starts crowding the pot, the best solution is division. The best time to propagate is in spring and summer when actively growing. Here are some tips on how to do this.

1. Remove your plant from the pot and use your fingers to remove the soil around the roots. You may notice some corms that are dormant bulblets. You can replant them in fresh soil with the rest of the plant sprout.
2. Now, separate the rhizomes using your fingers and avoid cutting them rhizome.
3. Replant each clump in fresh soil in a suitable pot and give them water.
4. Keep the soil moist and place them in bright, indirect light in a warm spot. 

Alocasia Polly Potting and Repotting

The potting requirement of the Alocasia Polly you can do every two years when the plant becomes root-bound. The best time to do this is in spring when it comes out of dormancy.

Use a container that is one size larger, like a plastic or glazed pot. Refill the container with fresh soil and plant the root ball at the same soil level as in the previous pot.

Overwintering

Indoor Alocasia Polly can stop growing in winter and look a bit limp. It might drop its leaves and normal when exposed to cold temperatures, dry soil, and less light.

All you do is cut back on your watering until spring or avoid it entirely by using a grow light and keeping it in a spot at 70 degrees Fahrenheit temperature.

Alocasia Polly Varieties and Similar Plants

Other Alocasia varieties are available online, and here are some excellent examples with striking features.

Zebrina

The Zebrina variety has an arrow or shield shape. It can be a noteworthy plant due to its zebra-patterned markings of yellow and black color.

Dragon Scale

The ‘Dragon Scale’ plant is another alocasia variety with silvery green and dark green leaves. The color of the said variety is directly opposite to that of alocasia.

Black Velvet

The ‘Black Velvet’ plant has black leaves with a heart in shape. The plant also has silver-white veins in its leaves.

Sanderiana

The Alocasia sanderiana has dark green leaves with a dark red color underneath every leaf. The Alocasia sanderiana is native to the Philippines’s Misamis Occidental and Bukidnon provinces. However, the said species are critically endangered.

Alocasia Polly Diseases & Pests

The Alocasia Polly can be bothered by common houseplant pests like scale, aphids, mealybugs, and spider mites. If you notice these insects on the foliage, you can remove them using neem oil or rubbing alcohol.

Remember to place your plant in quarantine to prevent infestations from spreading further.

Brown patches on the leaves

The appearance of the brown patches indicates that the sunlight exposure has scorched up the plant. To prevent this, you can move the plant away from the direction and place it in a spot where it is mostly shaded.

Leaves turning yellow

When the leaves of the plants appeared yellowish, this could indicate that the alocasia had been overwatered. Too much or too little water can cause the plant’s leaves to become yellow. Another reason the leaves of plant alocasia turn yellow is because the alocasia was exposed to direct sunlight.