ALOCASIAS - My Full Collection & Care Tips

Five to six years ago I bought my first alocasia and it started a massive love-hate relationship. When they're thriving I absolutely love them. I think they can be some of the most stunning and interesting houseplants but they're not always thriving. They can be a real pain and I feel like they can turn on you super super quickly and sometimes it's really hard to make them happy but that makes it extra rewarding when you do get nice results out of them. So today I would love to show you my entire alocasia collection and of course share with you all of my tips and tricks. And what is especially interesting about my alocasia collection is that it is so inconsistent. For example all of my climbing philodendron are on moss poles. All of my anthuriums are in a chunky aerod mix with a topping of moss. But when it comes to my alocasias I have no consistency. Some of them are grown in aerod mix, some of them are in moss, some in lecker, some in pond and so on. And hopefully by the end of the video it'll be clear as to why. Hello everybody and welcome back to my youtube channel. I suppose you're interested at all. So I think we should just get started at looking at some of these alocasias. I'm not gonna show them in any particular order. I'm literally just going to show them exactly the way that I arranged them over here which was purely based on aesthetic preferences. So there's no ranking, there's no nothing but I think when I make comments about these plants I think it will become really clear as to which ones I like the most. Are you going to help me or are you going in your box? You're going in your box. I feel like it's a bit messy over here. I can hardly move. Let me maybe position myself here so that I can move a little bit better and come closer without bumping into all sorts of alocasias. And then I suppose as we go through them it'll be a bit easier. Okay I would like to show you this plant first because I really like this at the moment. And I'll try and give you a little bit of background on these plants as well. But all the background really comes from memory. I didn't really necessarily look this up and I have to and on a little side note what I've noticed often actually is that when I rely just on my memory rather than relying on my footage I often get things confused to be honest you know. I sometimes don't remember all of the setbacks that I had with plants or I sometimes don't remember how much a plant was thriving a few years ago you know. I mean I see them every day so often you know those memories kind of get blocked out and I just focus on what's at hand. So anyway I'll do my best and try and remember the plant's history as much as I can. This plant would have been a plant that I definitely have for at least four years I would say. It's definitely been with me in the last three places that I lived in so that usually gives me a bit of a timeline. It is Alocasia jacqueline and I think it is one of the most stunning alocasias but definitely one of the alocasias I also historically struggled with quite a bit. What is really interesting about this in a hybrid choice it has this really nice hairy texture you can definitely hear it. Really interesting leaf shape and it also has this really interesting pattern almost right. So I think just a really stunning plant especially the backs as well. It has this really dark black veining almost just really stunning and nice patterns on the stems as well. Now I am doing a full video on the conversion of this plant into my moss lacquer setup but I basically have this in a glass vase with a lacquer reservoir and then moss on top and this plant has grown super super well into this lots and lots of roots. Now you will see this sort of setup with the lacquer and moss with a bunch of my alocasias. It is one of the more recent experiments with my alocasias. I historically grew all of them in aeroid mix but you know you never know unless you try. So I wanted to try things out so I wanted to try out something new. The first plant I ever did that with was my fire deck over here that we're going to look at later and I had great success with that. So I think I tried this method out for the first time 14-15 months ago and by now I have a bunch of plants in this setup but I've also had some plants that failed in this setup but we're going to talk about the setups my top tips and so on at the very end when I kind of just combine everything. One of the consistent things that you'll notice throughout all alocasias irrespective of the substrate that they're in they definitely appreciate consistent moisture provision which this setup makes really easy. But I think my number one tip with alocasia jacqueline over here is just be really careful with spider mites. Alocasia at large I feel like are spider mite magnet. This alocasia specifically is a spider mite magnet because of this texture as well. There's just so much surface area for the spider mites to hide in. So that is definitely my biggest concern with this plant. Now I've had much larger leaves on this plant at some stage but I've never really managed to hold on to many leaves at a time with this plant. All the way until this plant actually I thought completely died and I discarded it. But I've used a potting mix and turns out there were lots and lots of corms in the potting mix that I didn't see at the time. So a year ago I had alocasia jacqueline coming out of all sorts of pots. I had one coming out of my verkoiser, one coming out of my tricolour, one coming out of my garden bed, a few coming out of my anthurium. So honestly like I never was I wasn't that successful in growing it deliberately. And then once I gave up on it that plant just started popping out of all sorts of pots. So I plucked them out of the pots and put them all in this glass vase. And I'm now actually having pretty good success with this plant at the moment. And I'm really looking forward to seeing where we can go with this plant. Because I feel like in this method I'm gonna have a good time holding on to more leaves. Now I just need the plant to mature a little bit more and grow some larger leaves. But for now I am really really happy with this plant. But it's time to move on. Otherwise we'll be here all day. To be honest I'm not really super informed about alocasias. But it just made me think. This one is sarian and obviously a bit sad looking. But I feel like they might be related. They definitely have the same stem. All right now this one is in a similar setup. Also with leca and moss. But not in a glass vase. But instead in a little planter. And there's water sitting in there. And then these roots are attracted to the water. So like a semi-hydro setup. The other one was also semi-hydro. But I suppose over here it's in a plastic pot with holes. And in the water reservoir separately. Whereas in this glass vase everything is combined. I put this in here to experiment. Take this method of growing in leca and moss. But apply it to a vessel that is a little bit more readily available. I don't have that many glass vases. But I have lots of see-through pots. I do think this plant is growing a little bit too leggy for this tiny pot. I should probably have potted up a little bit deeper. But that's okay. I don't think I want to keep this. Because this plant can grow very large. I don't think I'll have space for it. I really just wanted to test the method. And it's obviously working. And I think I'm going to give it to Tim for him to put in his garden. Because this is also a crazy spider mite magnet. And I was never really able to shake the spider mites inside. It's currently growing in my greenhouse actually. But I feel like it's maybe looking for more light. It's looking a bit leggy with really small leaves. But I wasn't really focused on the leaves to be honest. I wasn't really focused on the plant to be honest. This was really just a proof of concept. And I really enjoyed this actually. And I'm glad it worked out so so well. But yeah I got to do something with it. It just flops around. I'm going to give it to Tim. Tim has a lot of success with alocasias. Maybe just on a little side note. A lot of my alocasias I propagated and gave to Tim. And Tim is growing them in his garden. Tim is my friend that just lives down the road. So he has pretty much the same conditions in his garden that I have in my garden. But we did a whole garden renovation. And the whole idea was that we renovate his garden and all of the plants that we put in this garden are propagations from my garden. So they didn't cost us anything. So we have nothing to lose. And I figured alocasias would make a great plant. Because I know that they're thriving at the Botanic Gardens over here in Sydney. So I know that they can tolerate our conditions year round. And indoors I've always had crazy spider mite issues with them. And outside doesn't seem to be the issue. We put a few super super sad alocasias in this garden and they are absolutely thriving. Like crazy. So they really enjoy being planted in the ground or in the big garden bed rather than being in a pot. And they really enjoy Sydney's outdoor conditions. It looks so good. Oh my god. I love it. Alrighty Timmy. This is the alocasia section. Yeah. With some cracking limesingers. Have a look at this one. This one looks extra yellow. I don't know why. Maybe because it's grown in more shady conditions. Yeah. But you have a look at how many limesingers there are. And it all started with one leaf. Literally one leaf unrooted that I pulled out of my garden a few years ago. Or 20 months ago. And it just spreads. Look at the size of this stem. It's huge. So pretty. Amazing pop of color. But my favorite at the moment is this regal shields over here. I mean this leaf. The sheen on it. It's just so sexy. It looks beautiful at night too. And the back as well. Yeah. At night it comes through with the nice backing lime. Really really nice. And again like remember when we put all of the regal shields in here 18 months ago. Should we throw it back to 18 months ago? Why not? Because I keep referring back to 18 months ago. That's when we set it up. Let's have a quick look. And yeah let's go through here. And then here are just some sad looking alocasias everywhere. As I will have to establish. These leaves are cactus of course you know. But we're just looking for new leaves. And hopefully they come soon. I mean look at this. It looks so sad. But trust the process. Okay guys? Trust the process. And once I saw how some of these species are thriving in this garden. I kind of feel a little bit bad about some of these species that I've got inside. Because I know I will never get them to that level. So I started being a little more selective if that makes sense. I often have more of this sort of jewel alocasia. So the ones that are kind of a little bit smaller. A little bit hardier. A little bit more leathery rather than the big leafy ones like the cerion could turn into. Like the ones you saw on screen in that footage that I put on. Like the lime zinger. The regal shields do really well in this garden as well. Colocasias and so on. Right? The more large finicky ones rather than the small thick ones. If that makes sense. So let's keep going with these sort of jewel alocasia types. This one is a platinum dragon. And this one is an aeroid mix. You can see there's some healthy roots pointing towards the outside over here. This all grew back from just a comb. Unfortunately the original plant that grew super well in my greenhouse a few years ago. I don't remember what exactly happened. I think it had something to do with winter and then definitely some rot. Definitely some spider mites. Sometimes my memory just blocks out the bad bits. I know that at some stage I thought this plant was actually completely gone. And I don't even remember where the comb came from. I think it was also one of these. I think it was similar to the Jacqueline where this just randomly started popping out of somewhere and then I eventually separated it out. Anyway I really like this plant actually and it's historically grown really well for me until it didn't. But definitely one I recommend picking up because I just think this sort of silver leaf is just super super stunning and somewhat unique in the plant world. Right? Green is common but this sort of silver blue is a little bit more special. If you're after something more green this is my alocasia green dragon scale. And I think this was one of my first alocasias as well. I've definitely had this for at least five years and this is a rather poor example of it. But very similar scenario. At some stage I kind of just dropped the ball on them. I think they were all just in the greenhouse and I just neglected them and kind of stopped caring about them. But that's one of the cool things that I really like about alocasias. You really just need one comb and you can start the whole journey again. And you know that for me it's all about the growth journey. It's not necessarily just about owning a plant. So I'm also enjoying the recovery journey right now. And then the third one over here. Actually I used to also have a silver dragon but that didn't make it. I'm not too sure where. Honestly I don't recall all of it. I have too many plants quite clearly if I don't remember what happened to all of them. But yeah maybe my brain is just really selective. This is my black velvet and this black velvet actually used to look really good until it didn't. I suppose the same happened. Probably some root rot, probably some spider mites, probably some cold induced damage in the greenhouse. But it is now also slowly coming back and I just think this is such a pretty plant. I love the velvet and it's also really thick and it has nice burgundy backs as well. This was quite large at one stage actually and I hope I can get there again. I think we're on a definite upwards trajectory. It has grown very slow but steadily over the last year or so. Now I really want to show you and I hope you find a nice photo of it. But I used to have just one big planter and then I would put these pots into the planter. Still separately planted so I can rotate them, water them, repot them and so on. But in that planter it basically looked like it was one display and I really want that display back to be honest. It was really nice having like four or five different allocations but they're all somewhat small. They all complement each other right. They're all like a little bit similar but a little bit different in shape, color, texture and it just made like this really nice display. But because they were all planted individual I can also move them around. So if one plant starts facing one way too much I can just switch them around and then always create a nice lush balanced display. That was in my kitchen and it got a lot of westerly sun and I think it really appreciated that. And then when I moved into this house I didn't really have a spot to put my allocation display in anymore. So I started kind of spreading them around and I think that's kind of when I stopped caring about them because I didn't have this nice display that I was aiming for anymore. Instead they were just a filler in greenhouse and yeah. Honestly a year ago I didn't expect to still have any of these to be honest but I'm really glad that I do. I'm really glad that some of them miraculously survived and are now growing back. It's good news. Let's talk about something that's growing back from nothing. I spoke about this plant too much so I'm going to keep it really short. This is my Allocasia odorapatic. It actually looked really nice maybe a year or two years ago but now it is just again recovering from a comb that miraculously survived. Proof of concept. Remember the other one that I had in a pot with LECA moss. Over here I'm doing the same. Now this is not yielding the same results at all even though I've done the exact same setup, same moss density, same amount of water and so on. So the setup is the same obviously just one size bigger than the last one but I'm not having the same results which is something I really want to point out. Just because something works once does not mean that it will always work. Just because something fails once doesn't mean that it will always fail. I've done the same concept twice with two different plants and at this stage I have a 50% success rate. So does that mean that the method in itself of moss LECA in a pot with water is flawed? No because otherwise it would be 100% fail. Is it 100% successful? No because obviously 50% of the times it seems to be failing. Two is probably not big enough of a sample size. I would probably have to try this concept 10 times and then see what my success rate is and then even if I tried it 10 times we need to keep in mind that I would have probably tried it 10 times with 10 different species. Well yes we refer to alocasias. There are lots of different alocasias that have very different requirements and different needs and even just when you think about the leaves. Some have really thick leathery leaves, some have really thin leaves and so on. So we then also need to keep in mind that maybe not every alocasia species appreciates every setup and so on. So that's what I'm still experimenting with and that's probably what I'm also going to be experimenting with for the rest of my life. This hobby, until I give up on alocasias I suppose, is what alocasia likes what substrate. Some alocasias might not be so finicky, some alocasias might have a very strong preference for one or the other and the other thing that you need to keep in mind is yourself. Because you might have a preference for one growing method over the other and so on. So I am still working on finding a balance between what is working for me in the way that I want to grow the plant and what's working for the alocasia and what kind of makes sense. Like what is fail safe, what is yielding the best results and what is also kind of fun. But I enjoy the journey, I enjoy the experimenting and so on. Again we're recapping a little bit more at the end but I really want to try and make this work again. This is one of the most stunning alocasias. Now let's talk about the unicorn over here. I think this is actually one of the most rare expensive plants in my whole collection. You guys know I'm not usually into really rare plants like I get plants that are readily available and it's more about growing them nicely rather than just getting an expensive piece of DNA. But I was gifted this plant and obviously I'm not going to say no. This is alocasia porte variegata and it can grow really really large and it's growing quite well so far. I'm going to do a full 12 month spotlight on this plant but recently I have had thrips on it and I can't seem to shake it. So maybe like a month ago I had five leaves and I only have three leaves and this one is definitely on the way out and that's definitely a thrips related issue. Because these leaves aren't looking so healthy you can hardly see the variegation as well because now it just looks like it's yellow but it was variegated. I don't know can you see that it's variegated. For thrips I treat them with contender spray. Oh nice roots over here. For thrips I'll treat it with contender spray and hope for the absolute best. Thrips is not necessarily a pest that I have experienced on alocasias very frequently. It's usually spider mites sometimes mealybugs. To be really honest the best way to deal with them is actually to just put them in the garden for a little bit and usually just spider mites just disappear when you put them in the garden for a month or so. That obviously only works during good conditions. At the moment it's actually too sunny. I think most of my alocasias would get burned if I put them in the garden now. But I also use kilomite as a treatment. This is a rather new addition to the collection. I haven't even had it for a year yet. I think maybe I've had it for maybe six months. So far it's growing quite okay but I want some larger leaves out of them so that I can really appreciate the variegation. I like how it's at least nice and firm and it seems healthy and it has a healthy root system. So even if thrips cause damage on the leaves I know it has a healthy root system and it will be able to recover hopefully. This one is a really similar shape to the jacqueline. I wonder if they ever laid it. I've only had access to the internet to do research. All right we're getting through them. Okay before we move on to this side of the room let me show you some of my regal shields. I've recently done a long video on it and I've done an update on it so I'm not going to bore you with it too much. Regal shields is definitely a alocasia I recommend because it seems to be one of the more pest resistant ones. I've never had spider mites on this, not from memory at least. And it seems to be easy growing and it is beautiful and it can grow quite large. This one is probably my favorite out of the ones that I've got. Look at this sheen of these leaves. Just so stunning, so pretty, has nice burgundy backsides as well. And look at the root system. All of this is roots so I definitely need to repot this very soon. I'm just really loving this plant and this was just propagated from a stem piece just a couple of months ago. Now when I propagated my big original mother plant the whole idea was that you know I want to propagate it to experiment a little bit and try with different medias because online there's so much debate about what substrate to use with your alocasias. So I wanted to try all of them a little bit. Over here I've got one that is growing in a pond. It is also just from a stem piece and it had to be shot and now giving me three leaves. I don't have visibility of the root system in the pond unfortunately because I've chosen this black pot from Ikea but I wouldn't have grown three leaves if it doesn't have a healthy root system. So yes the works for sure. All I do is I watered it from the top initially and now I just make sure that the water reservoir still has water in it so it is kind of like bottom watered and self-watered and whatnot which obviously makes a really loyal fast setup. But pond in itself might not necessarily be my favorite because of the heaviness of that little of those little rocks. It's not really serving me but I've heard a lot about pond online and everybody swears by pond so I wanted to give it a try and I'm pleased to announce that yes it definitely works. But so does aeroid mix and clearly so does moss as well. This one is the same plant also from a stem piece grown in aeroid mix also beautiful leaves. I just love this sheen, love the veining and it has also grown a very very healthy root system in the aeroid mix. And then this is the mother plant that I took the propagations from. It's also an aeroid mix. This one actually lives outdoors and it is growing really beautiful large leaves now. Look at these. So happy days. Can't wait to see what this looks like at the end of the growing season. So do I really need four alocasia vegal shields? No. I did that because I wanted to experiment with the substrate and I'm pleased to announce that all of the substrates work. But if you want to learn more about this experiment and trying out the different substrate I've got a separate video on this plant that I uploaded maybe just a month ago maybe a month and a half ago. Feel free to check it out where I talk about it in depth and you see the whole process from me chopping the original plant to propagating putting it in the respective substrates and updates and so on. You know I love to give you the process and the results all in one video so definitely recommend checking that out if you want to learn more about that. But for the sake of today's video all you need to know is that they all worked. Subtle foreshadowing. All right let's look at my favorite then and I honestly would have never expected to deem this my favorite alocasia. I've had the worst success with this plant for a really long time and I used to grow it in aeroid mix and it just didn't work for me and I grew it in all sorts of different conditions. IKEA cabinet, greenhouse, yada yada yada. I tried everything until I tried the moss lacquer method and that really really started working. Now it's been in this moss lacquer situation for just over a year. You can see lots of healthy roots everywhere but I can also see that the moss is decomposing over here a little bit. You can see that there's like a bit of a gap to be honest. I don't know if you can see because there's also a lot of reflection. And yeah so I don't know it's not root bound. I mean if I compare that to the regal shields the regal shields was much more root bound. So I don't think I need to repot this anytime soon but maybe I just need to top it up with a little bit more moss. You know if the existing moss is decomposing or getting compressed a little bit. Now that was the first time I've tried this method and since then I tried it with a lot of other allocations and I've had mixed success. It wasn't always a success. For example the Odorabatic as you can see is still not a success and I tried it's actually the second time I'm trying the same method. I know it's kind of a bit crazy. But the Jacqueline that I showed you very first I also tried it in this moss lacquer setup and it didn't do anything for the first six months. But now it is working. What I changed is the density of the moss. I think initially I potted it up with moss that was way too dense so it didn't have enough aeration. As much as aeroid roots love water they also love aeration. So yes you don't want your allocations to dry out. You don't want the substrate to dry out but you still want the substrate to have aeration. So once I made the moss less dense this plant is now clearly liking the method. So it's not just about which method you choose. You obviously also then need to execute on that method correctly. Small things can make all the difference. So I think in here actually if I could redo it I would actually make the moss less dense and I think I would have better success. But right now the plant seems to be growing into it nicely. The roots seem healthy and I can even see a few combs pop up on the side. So I'm not necessarily fixing what's not broken. So this plant has been in here for 13-14 months now. 15 maybe. Something around about that. And it started off with three combs by the way. So there are three plants in here. That's why it's looking so nice and lush. So the growing method definitely changed the trajectory of this plant for me. Now of course the growing method in itself doesn't just make your plant grow beautifully. You also need to give your plant good conditions which we're going to talk about at the end. And of course you also need to consistently keep this moist. In this setup what I do is I don't want the water level to exceed the layer of lacquer. So the water sitting in the layer of lacquer and then the moss touches the lacquer. So it's basically self-watering. So really easy setup because all you need to make sure is that you top up the water reservoir when it gets empty. I obviously also provide nutrients irrespective of the method of growing, irrespective of the substrate. I always provide my GT foliage focus which is also linked in the description. But that's not necessarily the most important thing in keeping this plant healthy. I think the most important part in keeping this plant healthy is to staying on top of spider mites. In those 15 months I probably had six spider mite infestations on this plant and I just use kilomite to treat it. I usually do two applications about a week apart and that seems to be keeping them in check for a little bit. I have a lot of plants. I introduce new ones. I open my windows and so on. It is unrealistic for me to ever eradicate pests. I'm more aiming for a consistent management approach. I just don't want the plant to suffer as a result of having spider mites. But I think it's unrealistic for spider mites to be fully eliminated. Now with this plant what I also really appreciate is just how random the variegation is. I'm not always a big fan of variegation but I really love how you never know what you're going to get. And that's kind of a general thing with alocasias because they come from the rhizome. It's kind of hard to anticipate what you're going to get. You can get a pretty wide leaf. This was the leaf that preceded this one. So there's kind of no correlation here. This one doesn't have that much variegation and this one suddenly has a lot of variegation. Before that it grew this leaf which was basically just fully green almost. On a Monstera when it climbs up your moss pot for example you can see on the stem how much variegation it has and then you can kind of judge based on the variegation on the stem how much variegation the leaf will have. It doesn't necessarily work like that with alocasia. So you never really know what you're going to get which I find really interesting. I know not a lot of people like that because some people are like well I asked for variegated alocasia. I want a variegated alocasia. But you know I think I was a little bit like that at the beginning of my journey as well. But you know five six years into growing it it gets predictable. Eventually you kind of start appreciating the randomness and it makes a nice variegated leaf extra special. Anyway I think I spoke plenty about this plant. I also have full videos on this plant's journey all the way from converting her to that new method to a year's worth of updates and so on. So plenty of alocasia content on my channel if you want to learn more. Did I say this was my favorite alocasia? Because I was lying. My favorite alocasia is my alocasia cuprea. Also done a full video on her recently because I just chopped her up. Before the chop she looked amazing and massive. But long story short I don't want to repeat the whole video. I basically had to chop her up because she was way out growing her pot and she was getting so leggy and growing out of her pot. I saw that she's just gonna snap. She would snap at some stage. So I thought I'd rather be in charge of where the plant snaps rather than letting the plant do itself. This is the top cutting and it's not growing its first leaf. This top cutting I'm growing again in lecca and moss and it's only been in here for maybe two months and it has grown a crazy nice root system. So that's really good to know. Look at this. Wow. This plant also has four shoots one two three and four over here. All right so this is kind of the top cutting. It was a bit nerve-wracking because it didn't have all too many roots but it worked. Then over here that's the bottom cutting. Also has many growth shoots in here. Let me show you this one. This one I'm currently growing in my greenhouse whereas the mother plant that you saw is growing just under this grow light that you see in the corner of the frame over here. And then I've got this one that is in just lecca. I'm trying to do a better job at keeping the lecca moist because so far I haven't seen any root growth. So oh no no no I'm lying. I can see the first root coming out here. Can you see this there? I don't want to hurt it anymore. That's good news. The first root I suppose I knew would have to have some roots because it's still alive and pushing out this leaf. This one is upstairs in my attic just supported by a skylight. And then I have this one. This is actually not a propagation of the other ones. So the other the first three I showed you are all just a propagation of that one plant that I got eight years ago. It was actually the tiniest plant when I first got it. Not eight years ago. I think six years ago. This one I bought separately and I actually bought this one as a variegated alocasia copra and if you look really closely some leaves show a little bit of variegation like here and over here but the variegation also comes at the cost of shape. So the leaves are severely deformed whenever they show variegation whereas when they don't show variegation they are not deformed. Now I bought this plant probably five years ago as well. Long long time ago. Three moves ago as well. Like in the very first house that I ever had plants in I had this plant already. When I first posted on Instagram oh my god I received a ---- storm of people being quite concerned about me introducing mosaic virus to my entire collection. It has been in my collection for five years and it has not spread mosaic virus to any other plant. Does that mean that it's not mosaic virus? I'm not too sure but whatever it is the plant also seems to have kind of grown out of it. I very rarely see these sort of variegated leaves so I think whatever it is the plant has just naturally decided it doesn't want it. Makes sense right? The variegation can't contribute to photosynthesis so it's not necessarily in the plant's best interest to keep it. We just like to select for it. Anyway this plant is growing in my garden. So these four coprias are all growing in four very different conditions. One under a grow light, one under a natural skylight which would suppose have the least light available, one in the garden where it gets a lot of sun and one in my greenhouse where it also gets a lot of light and also high humidity. This one in the attic low humidity because hot air rises and hot air can absorb less water so the relative humidity goes down and so on. Where am I going with this? The same plant but grown in four different conditions and all of them are alive. Am I optimizing the growth for all of them? Probably not. From my experience it really likes the consistent grow light setup over here but it shows that the plant can grow in various different conditions. Again we're going to talk about conditions at the end and I think we only have one left. I kind of thought I had more but let me show you the last one. Look at this and this is a rather large one actually. This is my Alocasia gagaena. Look at these leaves they're so pretty. So what happens when the leaf first comes out? It's hard to see. When the leaves first come out it's actually just green on green and then over time the variegated part goes lighter. So it goes from kind of a light green to a yellow over here. Again you can see that this was the leaf that preceded this leaf and the amount of variegation is very random. This one was the leaf before that over here that also has a nice little fungal spot where the variegation is. And this plant has now climbed out of its pot quite a lot. Look at how thick the rhizome is. So it could easily take lots of stem propagations over here but I think I'm not going to because this plant is also activated. One, two, three, four pups and I mean some of these pups are already quite established. Like look at this all of this is just two pups combined. Oh here this one you can really see when it first comes out you can't see any variegation. That doesn't mean that it doesn't have any it just hasn't developed yet and then over time it will show more dominantly. So this is thrilling to me because you guys know it's all about the journey. It would be boring if I know exactly what I get. So I enjoy that I never know how much variegation I get and then I also enjoy the variegation slowly coming in. I think it's called polaroid variegation but don't quote me. Anyway this plant is also in aeroid mix and has a very very healthy root system. Guys I was just putting some of the alocasias back in their spot and I noticed this one. Oopsie so small I forgot about it. This is my Colocasia esculenta. Also a beautiful kind of black stems and black veining. Grows really large. Is in my garden year-round. It goes dormant in winter so it basically drops all of its leaves maybe holds on to like one sad one and then in spring it grows really really rapidly. It also spreads very rapidly. Let me bring you closer with my phone. This was the original one that I planted over here and you can see how thick that stem is and then it sends out runners and these runners then turn into their own little plants like here. See this is the runner over here. There's already one there. There is one here. I'm pretty sure yeah there's even one all the way here. So the plant has you know very much spread itself. You can see the runner over here. Now in the afternoon this gets absolutely blasted with direct sun. Every afternoon this plant is actually hanging down here because it's so dehydrated and then as it cools down and the sun is less intense it kind of perks back up again. So it's a good so it really shows that especially these Colocasias actually can handle a lot of light and only then you actually get these nice large leaves out of them as well. Otherwise they'll Anyway just forgot about that one. Let's go back to inside Jan. Okay here we are. You've seen all of my Colocasia. I actually thought I had more but I suppose a lot of them are quite small for now. Let's see how we go. I definitely think this is the best my Colocasia collection has looked in like three years. There was definitely I definitely initially got a lot of Colocasia and everything worked out until it then didn't for various reasons mainly spider mites and root rot or a combination of them and then I kind of just gave up on Colocasia. I deemed them as too hard until I had great success with my Frydeck and once I discovered that new growing method I had I kind of regained confidence. That confidence was then kind of quickly squashed by having unsuccessful attempts in using the same method and that then kind of sparked my ambition. I was like hang on why am I struggling so much with Colocasia? I used to make them thrive until I didn't but I have setbacks with all sorts of other plants even like my varicosa a plant that I historically have grown really well and I still grow really well. It wasn't always like that. If I give up on a whole genus of plants just because of a few setbacks I'm kind of really limiting what I can grow and what I enjoy growing so it really triggered that ambitious nature in me and I started giving Colocasia another shot and as part of that I also wanted to really experiment with different substrates. All of that was also fueled by my comment section being absolutely on fire and people being very very convinced that one substrate is superior over the other. A lot of people I still think that PON is a cult. People that are into PON are so into PON they like it's too much guys. I'm just joking obviously but yeah people really wanted me to try PON. I tried PON it works but it's not my favorite way of growing. I love growing in aeroid mix. I tried aeroid mix again and it's obviously working. Look at the gagaena. She's been in aeroid mix her whole life. She's thriving. My copria has been in aeroid mix her whole life. She's thriving but then also some plants reconfirmed to me that the mosleca substrate combination is working. This one too until I then hit the odorabatic which then tells me no it's not working. I then got a new Colocasia that I was really nervous about and I was like oh my god this one is quite rare and expensive like I better not kill her. What's the safest way of growing her? So I went back to what I'm used to aeroid mix and it's working. Thrips aside. Where am I going with this? I've already been quite vocal in recent videos about the regal shields in the copria about the whole substrate debate. The whole point I'm trying to make is that obviously they're all working. I have success in aeroid mix. I have success in PON. I have success in MOS. I have semi-success in just leca which obviously shows that they're all working for the plants. Does that mean that they're all working for you as a grower? Maybe not. Maybe the mosleca situation isn't working for you because you can't get your hands on MOS. Maybe PON isn't working for you because you're sick of having little pebbles everywhere. Maybe leca isn't working for you because you hate the look of it or you hate the fact that you need to have these sort of water reservoirs. Maybe aeroid mix isn't working for you because you don't like organic substrates. By the way just because a plant is growing in PON does not mean that you won't have pests. Just so you know you can still have pests even if you grow in PON. Yes if you eliminate all organic substrates from your entire collection then the chances of pests being there is probably reduced but they can come through the window. Pests will find their way. Bottom line is that we have flexibility over here. You can choose the substrate that works for you based on affordability, availability, ease of use, ease of reuse and so on. Pick your poison. We don't need to argue about which one is better than the other but if you've been trying to grow allocators in aeroid mix and it's just not working for you then try something different. Maybe this is working for you. If you've been trying to grow it in moss and lecca and it's not working for you maybe try PON and so on. So maybe experiment a little bit until you find out what works for you. I've experimented and I found out that they all work for me because you know what happens when I experiment with a plant and I record that journey for you guys on YouTube. I actually start caring. I actually pay attention because I'm now invested in the journey of growing and experimenting and because of that I did a much better job at first of all keeping the plants pest free by proactively washing them and treating spider mites as soon as I see them and secondly I got much better at consistently keeping my allocations moist and I think that is really the bottom line. Allocages do not enjoy drying out and being rehydrated like a monstera would for example or succulent. I'm aiming at keeping the substrate consistently moist. If you let it dry out too much and then you re-moisten that's most likely how you introduce root rot. A setup like PON with a self-watering pot obviously makes that whole concept really easy because all you need to do is you need to pay attention to the water reservoir and top up the water reservoir when it's empty and then the wick wicks up the PON and so on and it is a really easy way of facilitating consistent moisture levels. Same with this. Moss is really good at retaining moisture and the water reservoir is consistently keeping it moist. Aeroid mix would be the hardest one to keep consistently moist because you actually need to check and then top water accordingly but I think it's quite easy if you grow in see-through pots because you can assess the condensation. So over here for example I can see that there's plenty of condensation so I know that this plant still has moisture in its pot. So really my tip over here is not to go for a specific substrate based on my experience. My tip is to choose the substrate and setup that will make it the easiest and most enjoyable for you to consistently provide moisture to your alocasia. That's really the trick. Are there differences between alocasias? Of course a copria for example can tolerate drying out more than the gagaeno over here. This one has really fine leaves. This one has really thick leathery leaves. Rule of thumb. Do I know about all of the species of alocasias and what their preferences are? Absolutely not. I'm still experimenting and I will probably forever experiment but just because they can tolerate drying out doesn't mean that they want to dry out. The alocasia here this one in this setup it is a moisture of attentive setup right it never dries out and that alocasia is thriving as much as the alocasia in aeroid mix is thriving that technically has a much higher chance of ever drying out. So just because a plant can tolerate drying out does not mean that it wants to dry out. It's this advice that I hear online a lot especially in relation to aeroids especially in relation to monsteras for example. People say let your monstera dry out before watering. That's not because the monstera wants to dry out before you water it. That's just because the chances of you over watering are much higher than the chances of you under watering. So that's why people say rather be conservative than go too hard. But in a perfect world you would provide consistent moisture levels and that's why such a setup like this is a game changer in some people's opinion including mine back in the days before I experimented more. Oh my god I get very too passionate about this. Anyway I really need to stop talking about the substrate because I feel like I'm flogging a dead horse. Hopefully my point came across by now. Just to quickly repeat it when I provide water I also provide nutrients GT Foliage Focus which is linked in the description and I provide that with every watering irrespective of the substrate and the setup and once a month I take my plants outside. I hoist them down and I also flush out the pot or in here I flood the vase and then I turn it upside down and drain all of the water out so that I flush out any excess minerals because that could alter the pH and so on and could actually harm the plant more than anything else. So once a month I do a flushing out cycle where I then don't provide nutrients and at the same time I also clean all of the leaves because clean leaves are healthy leaves. And I do think that combination of consistent moisture and consistent nutrient provision is also key in holding on to more than just two leaves on your alocasia. That's a question I get asked quite often. Every time my plant pushes out one leaf it aborts the next one. Well obvious reasons could be that the plant has pests for example that's why it drops leaves. But most likely it could be that the plant just doesn't have enough roots available to actually support multiple leaves so it aborts the oldest one in favor of focusing on the newest leaf. Or it could be that the plant doesn't have enough nutrients available to actually maintain all of the leaves and keep them alive so it rather sacrifices the oldest leaves in favor of the new leaves. When I provide moisture consistently and I provide nutrients consistently I never seem to have the issue of alocasia only holding on to one or two leaves unless of course there were some really infested leaves that I rather cut off to prevent the pest from spreading further. But yeah I think most likely you might not be providing enough nutrients. Now that doesn't mean that you want to provide a lot of nutrients in one go because that can then also hurt the roots. It's called fertilizer burn. You can burn your roots if you provide too much nutrients so that's why I like the approach with my hydroponic nutrient where I just basically microdose. With every watering the plant is provided with a little bit of nutrients. I use about three to five milliliters per liter. So it's never too much for the plant to kind of suffer as a result of it. It's always enough for the plant to just continuously grow. Plus the nutrient is bioavailable so the plant can just eat it up straight away. All of this is really just care. It's what we do. How do we water? How do we repot it? How do we treat pests? First and foremost we still need to provide our alocasias with good conditions. Usually I say light is the most important and of course light is really important but I would say with alocasias I reckon temperature is actually the most important one. I am avoiding anything under 16 degrees celsius with my alocasias because anything under 16 degrees would most likely induce dormancy. That's when the plant stops growing potentially also aborts all of its existing leaves. Basically it has all of its energy stored in the rhizome which is you saw that that's the rhizome. This usually this part of the rhizome is underground. Can you see this? This is the rhizome the thick stem. Usually that is under the ground but it can grow out of the pot as well. So all of the energy is stored in that rhizome and then in spring they reshoot. Not a problem at all. I mean initially the first few years of my plant journey I really didn't want any plant to go dormant because I felt like what's the point of having a plant that only looks nice for half a year or you ruin all your progress. But it is actually the plant's natural cycle right and sometimes after dormancy the plant actually grows bigger and larger than ever. But I personally try to avoid dormancy because I like my alocasias looking lush year round and I don't think any of mine have really been dormant this year. The copra has never been dormant for example in five years of growing. This friday survived all of winter without hardly dropping any leaves to be honest. It didn't grow many new leaves and the leaves were a bit smaller but I was still growing. So I think temperature is really important. Keep them warm that will stop them from becoming dormant. I think airflow is really important because airflow is going to make the plant grow strong rather than just really floppy. You know you want the plant to kind of have a bit of a rigid nature. So a little bit of airflow that doesn't mean like full-on drafts. Just exchange of air can be really helpful and from a humidity perspective I suppose they very much vary right. I think rule of thumb the thinner the leaf the more likely they like higher humidity. The thicker the leaf the more likely they can tolerate dry conditions. Mine are exposed to anything from like 30 to 40 percent humidity in winter when there's a lot of heating involved all the way to about 90 percent humidity when they're in the greenhouse. Even just the alocasia coprius that I showed you earlier they're in four completely different humidity environments. One in the greenhouse is probably on average 80 to 90 percent. The one in the living room is probably on average 50 to 60 percent. The one in the attic is on average probably 30 to 40 percent. So various different levels of humidity yet they're all happy and growing. And then obviously the last one is light. I think a lot of people are underestimating how much light alocasia can actually take. If your plant grows really leggy stems and petioles with tiny leaves that's not enough light guys. If your plant grows nice large leaves without having super long petioles then it means that the plant is most likely receiving enough light. If the plant is drooping down like this it hides its leaves that can sometimes mean that the plant is receiving too much light. But it can also just mean that these existing leaves are not used to that amount of light. That doesn't mean that subsequent leaves thereafter can't handle that amount of light either. Example when I first put it in my garden in quite a sunny spot it started pointing down. Two months after you can still see these are pointing a little bit down. Two months after the plant is really perked back up and new leaves are growing and also perking up. So the species can tolerate that amount of light just that specific specimen and those specific leaves on that specimen were not used to that because they grew up in lower light conditions and now it's more the change in light that is causing the plant to kind of throw a bit of a not necessarily the light intensity as such. Micropria has lived under its own grow light for years now and it never grew better than when it's under that grow light. It was under a Soltec Vita first and now it's under a Soltec Aspect which I also linked in the description down below. Way more light than I initially anticipated. I would have anticipated well they're small plants you know they don't climb up trees they don't necessarily naturally get access to more light but a lot of them are just growing like out in the open in full sun. Tim's plants in his garden they're in a north facing courtyard keep in mind I'm in the southern hemisphere so north is full on summer sun. They get absolutely bombarded with sun all summer long and they can tolerate it but they grew up in that environment they're used to that amount of sun that's why they can tolerate it. If I would now put this plant that's growing in the south facing window which is the worst exposure if I would put this now in my garden it would probably burn within one day right but if I would have grown this plant in a north facing courtyard its whole life then maybe it would be okay with it. Probably too much variegation for direct sun but it's fine. This one south facing window so not that much light you know very bright indirect but not all too much direct sun but it also likes it and I liked it year round as well. So where am I going with this? I can't give you a specific set of conditions because I don't know first of all which exact allocator you're growing but I also don't want to give you a really prescriptive set of conditions because from my experience growing allocators for five years various different ones in various different environments most of them kind of work as long as you provide them with light so that you actually actively see growth and you provide them with warm temperatures and you consistently keep the allocators moist you should be just fine. Trial and error. See what works for you. I think that's really the bottom line. Please don't give up on allocators but rather experiment a little bit and see if you can find a set of conditions and a growing method that work for you and your allocators because when you do figure it out it can be super super rewarding and I would hate for people to miss out on this beautiful genus of plants but it is definitely not an easy journey and be prepared for ups and downs but the downs will make the ups more rewarding right so just give them a shot please. One last thing allocators grow in fluorescences quite frequently those are flowers I always just cut them off and I haven't really noticed any issues on the back of it so I am pretty cutthroat I just cut them off as soon as I noticed that they're in fluorescence sometimes my plants might grow three four five six seven inflorescence in a row that's okay I'll just stay patient and I'll wait for the next leaf. Anyway I'll wrap it up here please give this video a thumbs up in the comments down below let me know what's your favorite allocator to grow also make sure you subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and hopefully I'll see you in my next video. Bye!