I cannot figure out what I’ve done wrong with my elephant ear plant. I’m following plantas instructions on lighting and watering and every leaf has slowly turned yellow and died. Now my final two leaves are goners… I repotted to make sure there wasn’t root rot…. Any thoughts?
Alocasias are the most difficult plants that I have, by far. I ended up changing all of mine to pon (semi-hydro) because watering seems to always be an issue with these guys. They want a lot of oxygen around their roots, but they also want constant access to the water. But they’re prone to both root rot AND dry rot. They want the perfect balance. I’ve also heard people have luck keeping them in a self-watering planter, in very chunky soil. But I haven’t tried that personally.
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Humidity? I’ve never had an alocasia before 😅
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I’d given yours a chop back and only leave about six inches of stem, keep it in bright indirect light, good humidity conditions and like send nodes said, keep it consistently moist but not drowning
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I’ve had two pots of upright elephant ears plants almost 15 years. They get 1/2 sun, 1/2 shade until noon and get shade the rest of the day. They are in the original nursery pots. I’ve never changed the soil because they are happy campers. I’ve added compost each spring. The new corms have filled in the pots with new plants pushing out most of the soil. They get plenty of rain water about every 10 days. I fertilize once a month when I remember. I recommend you give the plant more light. They take more light than expected. Let the soil dry out before watering again.
Beautiful plants! My gosh, you have not only a green thumb but a green glitter thumb lol
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I find plants tells me to water too often. I’ll check when it’s recommended but 90% of the time I skip until next time
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I’ve got a few of these and definitely agree with the above. Give lots of light, humidity as high as feasible, and also they seem to be very heavy feeders. I’m currently giving double the dosage recommended on the bottle. They also grow much better on the warm side of temperatures. Did you grow from corm or buy as an established plant? Sometimes big corms end up in smaller pots than would be ideal with these guys. I usually like to keep my alocasia pretty snug but these guys go straight into large pots with me (I think mine are in 14” pots) because they seem to grow their roots to fill them out.
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