I think my Alocasia hybrid has officially gone dormant or entered the preparatory dormant phase; what should I do to get her back out of dormancy and make her happy? Thanks in advance! Background: I don’t know what kind of Alocasia this is exactly because it was mislabeled as a philodendron at the store and I’ve never found an exact match for it online. So, it might be a unique hybrid, but bonus points if you happen to be able to identify it! After struggling a lot to keep up with plant care last year, she naturally started to decline. About 4-5 months ago, I got back on track with things and started trying really hard to get this one thriving again. She dropped all but 2 leaves due to underwatering, but the remaining leaves looked good until they started going pale in color a few months ago. She was also reaching for more light and looking leggy, so I added a grow light about 2 months ago, but I still haven’t seen any progress and the leaves seem to still be paling in color. She lives in a north-west facing window where she has a wide view of the sky but never gets direct sunlight and she now currently receives about 800 foot candles (FC) for 12 hours/day. This stopped the reaching but no other visible improvement. I’m considering increasing the light to get closer to 1000 FC, but haven’t done so yet. I aim to water when the top 25% of the soil is dry and test the moisture first with my finger or a toothpick. I used to just fertilize with full strength any time Planta told me to, but about 2 months ago I started using weakly diluted fertilizer with every watering and then flushing with distilled water about every 4-6 weeks. However, if it’s dormant should I not be using fertilizer? I use dyna-gro foliage pro liquid fertilizer. I used to do just normal tap water because my tap water quality is really good, but I switched to distilled water recently just in case (not convinced this actually matters though 😅). She’s in a soil-free mixture of coco coir, coco chips, perlite, horticultural charcoal, and worm castings. She does have a humidifier but I’m not 100% consistent at keeping it filled. I’m going to start making a point to refill the humidifier every morning so it’s more consistent. I sealed off the window where she lives to prevent cold drafts and it consistently stays about 65-70 degrees where she lives and I make sure the leaves don’t touch the cold window glass. I last repotted her several months ago into a plastic nursery pot with plenty of drainage and at the time the pot was not quite 2” bigger than the size of the roots. I’ve checked for signs of pests but haven’t seen any thankfully and I do clean the leaves regularly. I know that was a lot of info- thanks for reading it all if you got this far!
