Alocasia Polly Care Guide & Growing Tips In Details

Hello Friends, welcome to our new blog about my favourite plant, Alocasia Polly care.

All the things that I’m going to cover in this blog, Alocasia Polly care, I’m going to share my personal experiences that I have observed during growing Alocasia Polly growing in my home and different nurseries across different counties and learned while growing this awesome plant.

This is a complete guide of Alocasia Polly care for beginners to make them expert in Alocasia Polly growing with soil requirement, Fertilizer Requirement, water requirements and all other details 

In this blog, we have denoted Alocasia Polly as Alocasia Bambino, African Mask Plant, Kris plant, elephant’s ear, because these are common names of some Alocasia Polly, so don’t get confused with the name.

Alocasia Polly care in short 

Scientific name:-	Alocasia amazonica Polly.
Origin:-	Southeast Asia Rainforest.
Common Name:-	Alocasia Bambino, Alocasia x Amazonica, African Mask Plant, Elephant’s Ear plants.
Maximum height:-	1 to 2.5 feet.
Soil Requirement:-	Rich in organic content, PH 5.5 TO 6.5.
Fertilizer Requirement:-	Organic fertilizer is required only in the growing season.
Temperature Requirement:-	65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit (18 to 24 degrees Celsius).
Humidity Requirement:-	Loves to grow in humid conditions.
Light Requirement:-	Bright indirect light.
Propagation:-	Propagate by harvesting bulbs of the plant and by division of the roots.
Alocasia Polly flower:-	Rare in indoor conditions.
Water Requirement:-	More in the growing season.
Pruning Practice:-	Only to remove damaged and old parts of the plant.
Diseases:-	Powdery mildew and yellowing of leaves.
Toxic:-	For cats and dogs.

Read About Alocasia Polly care In Details

Introduction

When we say the name Alocasia Polly, some people get confused 😕 because this beautiful

plant is known by four different names Alocasia Bambino, Alocasia x Amazonica, African Mask Plant, Elephant’s Ear plants, but don’t get confused names can be different according to region and country but this elegant plant is almost same.

All plants have some slight differences like Alocasia Polly and Alocasia Amazonica differs from each other in height. In this blog we will know about Alocasia Polly.

The scientific name of Alocasia Polly is Alocasia amazonica Polly.

It belongs to the species Alocasia, the maximum height of the plant can reach 1 to 2.5 feet.

This depends on the environmental condition and nutrients available in the soil.

When we compare different plants of alocasia species, Alocasia Bambino is best among all that because of its beautiful leaves and height of the plant, the combination of all these makes it an excellent plant for indoor gardening.

We have heard from many experts on different websites and channels that growing Alocasia Polly is very difficult, but according to our experience of growing, we can say confidentially that with this growing guide of Alocasia Polly, anyone can easily grow the plant by reading this.

These days, the plant Alocasia Polly becomes so popular on social sites, especially on Instagram, because of its magnificent appearance.

The primary attraction of this fascinating plant is leaves and the white veins between the green colour increase the charm of the plant.

Alocasia Bambino is a hybrid plant which is made from the plant Alocasia Amazonica because the height of Alocasia Amazonica is big and it is not suitable to grow indoors, there are some more reasons also that it grows so dense as compared to Alocasia Polly and requires more nutrient, so this beautiful hybrid plant is made.

The natural habitat of the plant Alocasia Polly is a rainforest of Asia, just by knowing and understanding the natural habitat of the plant we know the favourable temperature, environment and condition of the plant.

If you want to increase the beauty of your house, then this fascinating plant with deep green leaves

Environmental requirement for Alocasia Polly Care

Every plant has some specific requirement for its proper vegetative growth and development.

As we have previously discussed, the natural habitat of Alocasia Bambino is the Asian rainforest, so it is a shade loving plant that makes it more suitable for keeping this plant in an indoor environment.

We will suggest you not keep your beautiful loving plant in direct sunlight.

It will damage the leaves of the plant, and leaves are most important in this plant for its appearance and survival both.

We will suggest providing bright, indirect, filtered light to the plant for awesome vegetative growth of the plant.

We used to keep our plants in this condition and we got the best result in vegetative growth of the plants, especially the leaves of the plant showing good growth.

We suggest that you maintain the temperature of the environment where we keep our beautiful African Mask Plant 🌱 above 55 to 60 Fahrenheit. In low-temperature vegetative growth of the plant will get affected, so we suggest you maintain the temperature of the house.

Soil Requirement Alocasia Bambino care

Soil should be rich in organic content. We will suggest using well-drained soil.

We should use the soil with moderate water holding capacity. For good vegetative growth, moderate moisture conditions should be maintained, but high moisture content in the soil will damage the roots of the plant and it also becomes the reason for root rot.

Problems teach everything. I’m saying this because we were getting a problem with soil that it is holding too much water and it will damage the roots of the plant, so we used to mix coco coir with soil and problem get solved after mixing water holding in the soil get balanced.

We will suggest you check the moisture content in the soil before pouring the water, if the moisture content is more, don’t irritate the plant and if you find the soil condition dry then irrigate it.

We have observed the growth of the plant is more when we keep the root zone moist and filled with fertilizer as compared to keeping the root zone of the plant dried.

So we suggest you keep the root zone of the plant-filled with moist fertilizer. We can use organic fertilizer FYM (farmyard manure) for this purpose.

PH of the soil should be between 5.5 to 6.5 moderately acidic soil is best for the Alocasia Bambino

Fertilizer Requirement of African Mask Plant care

The fertilizer requirement of the Alocasia plant is very less. It doesn’t need regular fertilizer. Apply it once a year before the growing season, which is more than enough for its growth and development.

We will suggest using organic fertilizer because it doesn’t harm the plant in any condition and the second reason is organic fertilizer releases slow nutrients, which is the best thing for vegetative growth and development of the plant.

If you are using the chemical fertilizer, use it at the spring’s starting season and apply two to three times in spring with the gap of one or two weeks regularly, we will suggest that you stop the application of chemical fertilizer before August because an overdose of chemical fertilizer can damage the plant’s vegetative growth.

There is not any fixed time period to apply organic fertilizer. We can apply anytime in the year except in winter.

We will suggest filling organic fertilizer at the base of the pot and around the root zone above the soil. This will help plants to observe nutrients easily through their root hairs.

This is how we have applied organic and chemical fertilizer in our plant Alocasia Polly. we get an excellent result in the vegetative growth of the plant.

This is an effective way because organic fertilizer release nutrient slowly and the plant intakes the nutrients according to its requirement. 

Temperature Requirement Alocasia Bambino care

We have observed that if we keep the plant in the temperature between 65 degrees Fahrenheit to 75 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius to 24 degrees Celsius) the vegetative growth of the plant increases.

We will suggest taking care of the temperature.

It should not go below 50 degrees Fahrenheit because it is a dangerous situation for the plant and it will directly affect the vegetative growth of the plant.

Plant Alocasia Bambino loves warm and humid conditions because its natural habitat is the Asian rainforest, where the temperature is always warm and humid.

In this condition, we can easily observe the happy growing Alocasia Polly plant.

Humidity Requirement Of African Mask Plant care

To know the proper humidity requirement of the plant Alocasia Polly, we did one small experiment we kept two different plants in two different conditions, the first plant we kept in a humid condition where the plant gets proper humidity and the second plant in a dry condition where the plant is not getting proper humidity as required. After some time, we get the result of our observation.

We observe plants that are kept in humid conditions have very satisfactory vegetative growth as compared to the plant kept in dry condition, African Mask Plant is a humidity loving plant this is because of its origin from rainforest conditions.

It requires an appropriate amount of humidity for the proper vegetative growth and development of the plant.

To fulfil the proper amount of moisture in the environment, we will suggest some practical ways that we have practised:

Firstly, we will suggest keeping plants in the group, the second way we can also use an electric humidifier but we will suggest this only if you have over three plants that love humid conditions then use this, thirdly a common way that we did for a long time is the use of water spray bottle and spray for two to three times in dry days, by doing this also humidity requirement will fulfil.

The Last easy way we can do this is to put one water tray below the pot and fill half of the tray with water.

It gets evaporated in the environment and provides proper humidity to the plant. This is the easiest and most common method used in maximum houses for indoor gardening.

Light Requirement Of Alocasia Bambino

Alocasia Bambino doesn’t like direct sunlight. If we compare Alocasia Polly with other varieties of Alocasia, it differs totally from them for the direct light requirement because most of them require direct sunlight for proper growth and development.

It is not a good idea to keep a plant in a closed room because it requires bright light for essential growth and development and if Alocasia Polly will not get bright light, the leaves of the plant will drop, and many other symptoms will also come like yellowing of main stem and leaves of the plant.

We suggest you keep your beautiful plant at the distance from your window or outlet to protect the plant from direct sunlight, as we have previously said it loves to grow in indirect light, so it is good to use thin cloth or transparent material between plants and direct sunlight.

We have practically maintained a distance of 3.5 feet from our window (direct sunlight source). In between that, we used a thin curtain of cloth; the result was awesome, plant vegetative growth is very desirable.

Propagation of Alocasia Polly 

Propagation is very important to get a new baby plant. They also needed it because if we will not propagate alocasia Polly at two different pots or two different places, the plant will become dense and competition between plants will increase for nutrients, space, water, and sunlight, this is a rule of nature and need for the healthy, beautiful growing plant.

There are mostly two common methods of propagation to propagate the wonderful plant of Alocasia Polly.

1. Propagate by harvesting bulbs of the plant
2. Propagate by division of the roots

The method that we used to propagate our Alocasia Polly is a division of roots. We used this method because it is very easy and it takes very little time to grow the new baby plant.

And the method of propagation by harvesting bulbs of the plant is an ancient method.

The germination rate is also less in bulbs because the maximum chances are that it will damage during uprooting and we have to wait for a long time to get bulbs.

 

Know The Details How To Propagate by division of the roots

Instrument Require For this process of propagation is a cutter, extra pot, soil with rich organic content.

The time required for root cutting will be a maximum of 10 to 20 minutes.

We suggest you take the mature plant for separating the plant as given in the picture.

Do all the process of separation by hand only. We will suggest wearing gloves for your safety.

Before taking out the mother plant from the pot, just fill the pot with water for some time.

By doing this root zone of the plant will get loose and it will be very easy to take out the plant from the pot without damaging the plant and its root.

After this, identify the mother plant and child plant separate them with a loose hand without damaging the major roots of the plant.

After Separating, both mother and baby plant roots, we will suggest growing them in two separate pots.

Take care about the drainage of pot because the water-logging condition is not good for new plants. Don’t put both plants in direct sunlight.

Indirect light will help the plant in growth and development. It will take time to establish the new roots in the soil.

After we separate the plant, five days is the very crucial time period in this time plant will set in the new soil, root hairs will start coming from the major roots. So in this period, we suggest you take special care of light, humidity and water requirement.

Read Details of Alocasia Polly Propagation 

Alocasia Polly flower

When we hear the first time about flowering in African Mask Plant, we got confused about whether it is real, but after long waiting and research, we saw that and today will clear this to you as well.

There are many varieties of Alocasia that flowers 💐 yearly or seasonally, but Alocasia Polly flowers rarely.

It blooms in the natural habitat of the Asian rainforest with favorable environmental conditions. It is very rare to see blooming plants in indoor environmental conditions.

The look of the flower is very mysterious-looking. If you see that flower first, the time you will get surprised by the look of the flower. It is just thin leaves with a pod between them.

But for flowering plants require a lot of nutrients, and in this condition you can observe some changes in the plant, like yellowing of leaves, falling of leaves and sometimes you can see wilting condition for the beautiful plant.

So many of the plant lovers think 🤔 we should not allow the plant to bloom, and they broke the flower in the very initial stage to stop flowering, they do this because the supreme beauty of the plant is leaves and shape of the plant, so to maintain it they ignore the flower of the plant.

During the period of flowering, the plant is under stress and it does not look pretty, so it is completely on you what you decide to do with your plant if you want to leave the plant in its natural condition in the perfect environmental condition it will bear flower and recover in its normal condition.

What we In this Condition, we have left the plant in its natural condition. We let our plant bloom; we took some special care of the plant by providing organic fertilizer because every phase of the growth in the plant is very important and there is no harm to the plant so let it bloom.

Water Requirement

Watering is a very important thing that we have to take care of and when we are growing sensitive and beautiful plants like Alocasia Polly, then it becomes more important.

The water requirement of the plant depends on the environmental condition of the place. If the place is dry, moisture is not available in the environment, then the plant will require more water for proper vegetative growth.

If we will water less to Elephant’s Ear Plant, then it will affect negatively to vegetative growth and development of the plant, and if we will water more to the Elephant’s Ear Plant then yellowing of leaves, root rot and many other negative symptoms we can see in the plant. So it is very vital to maintain a moderate amount of water in the plant.

A common question that we get from our regular readers is; How to understand the water requirement of Alocasia Polly?

It is very easy to understand the requirement for water. Just need to check the upper layer of the soil.

If the upper layer is moist, then the plant doesn’t need water. We will not suggest that you check it with your bare hands, use any small instrument or you can also use a kitchen spoon 🥄, don’t dig too deep to check the moisture upper layer 2 to 3 cm is enough to know the moisture.

When soil is completely dry, then only water the plant. Water requirements will be more in the growing season of summer.

In winter, when the temperature is very less, the growth of the plants also slows down in that condition.

The water requirement of the Elephant’s Ear Plant also decreases, so without checking the upper layer of the soil, we will not advise watering the beautiful Elephant’s Ear Plant.

In short, we will say during the peak growing season in summer, plants can need two times watering and in winter once in the month after checking the soil moisture.  

A common question that we get from our regular readers is; What type of water we should use to irrigate our beautiful plant, Alocasia Polly?

We will suggest using normal running tap water, just we need to check the quality of water, it should not contain any type of impurities, we will not suggest using UV rays filtered water because it is nutrient less it will not benefit the plants in growth and development.

If you have access to any natural resource of water, like a river or waterfall, then it is very best or supply tap water is also good.

Drainage of water from the pot is very important, as irrigation is important, so we suggest making a hole in the pot’s bottom from that extra water will drain out from the pot.

This will protect the plant from water logging conditions because it is very dangerous, as the plant’s roots will start rotting in waterlogged conditions.

Pruning Practice 

Requirement of Pruning in Alocasia Polly is very less or we can say there is no requirement of pruning in this beautiful indoor plant, but sometimes in rare cases, vegetative growth of the plant increases more.

This is because of an overdose of nitrogen fertilizer. In this situation, we have to do Pruning monthly.

Expect this condition plant only to require pruning to cut the old and dried leaves.

We will suggest cleaning all the pruning instruments before using them.

With this process, any type of bacterial and viral infection will not transfer from one plant to another.

This is a small thing to do, but it stops many types of disease to spread among all of our beautiful indoor plants.

Repotting Elephant’s Ear Plant

Repotting and potting are very common practices that all plant lovers should know. It is not a tough process, but we have to do it carefully and gently.

Hare, we are going to explain every step of repotting Alocasia Bambino.

Why we should do repotting off Elephant’s Ear Plant

When we grow, Elephant’s Ear Plant in the pot, roots of the plant have very limited space to grow and limited nutrients, so when the plant uses all the space in the pot to grow then the availability of nutrients also decreases because root hairs grow continues and it requires a lot of nutrients and space.

And in this condition, if a plant will not get space and nutrient leaves of the plant will start getting yellow, vegetative growth of the plant will stop. The roots of the plant will try to get out of the pot through a drainage hole.

This is the condition where repotting is very important, or the plant will start wilting.

Equipment and instrument required for repotting

The first thing that we need to do reporting is the immense size of the pot.

We strongly recommended to the plant lover’s pot size should be big than the previous one that we are using currently.

Keep a good amount of soil and farmyard manure to fill the base of the new pot. Keep in mind to do one small hole at the base of the pot for drainage is very important.

The instrument that is important in repotting Hand Trowel, Transplant Trowel, Cultivator Hand Rake/Hoe, and Five Tooth Fork.

If you have these instruments, it will be very easy to do the repotting.

We will suggest sanitizing every instrument that is required in repotting Elephant’s Ear Plant. It will stop the spread of any bacterial and fungal disease.

Process of repotting

1st step is to just irrigate the plant. This will help you take out the plant from the pot. After watering, the roots will get loose.

2nd step, take out your plant gently from the pot.

If it requires adding more water than adding it, doesn’t pull the plant harshly, it will damage the major root of the plant.

3rd step, remove all extra soil from the roots of the plant. You can use any small trowel.

We will suggest using gloves 🧤 this will protect your hand from any type of injury and protect the plant from any type of viral or bacterial infection.

4th step, this is the most important step. Do it gently cut extra root hairs, keep the important thing in mind you have to cut extra root hairs not to cut or damage major roots of the plant. Keep eyes on thick roots, don’t damage them.

5th step, put the plant in a new pot, we will suggest decorating the pots, it will look attractive.

Put the mixture of soil and organic fertilizer as the base of the pot, then put the plant in between the pot, add soil and press it with a soft hand.

6th step is to check everything, moisture content should be present in the soil.

We will suggest making soil mixture with half portion organic farmyard manure or the vermicompost and another half good quality of the soil.

Don’t keep the newly planted pot in sunlight, it will take some time to set the root.

The last suggestion doesn’t apply any type of chemical fertilizer up to three weeks of transplanting don’t over-water your plant, protect it from direct sunlight, keep the plant at a distance from the reach of children and animals, the plant should be protected from shaking because roots of the plant take time to hold the new soil and start growing.

Diseases Of Alocasia Polly

There are two very common diseases in Elephant’s Ear Plant and when we do Alocasia Polly care, It is important to know this

• 1st is Powdery Mildew
• 2nd Yellowing Leaves

Powdery Mildew

This is a fungal disease. The major problem with this disease is it spread so fast from one plant to another plant, you can easily observe white chalk-like things on your Elephant’s Ear Plant leaves.

first, it will affect the leaves of the plant, you will see the white spot on leaves then slowly it will spread all over the plants.

Indoor condition is very favourable for the growth of Powdery Mildew.

It requires 20 to 22-degree Celsius and moisture in the environment to grow and, in indoor conditions, they will get favourable conditions.

A common question that we get is how my beautiful plant, Alocasia Polly, gets affected by this Powdery Mildew reason behind this is low air circulation in the room where we kept the plant.

The second reason is low brightness 🔆 indirect sunlight is very necessary for the plant.

Less amount of moisture is present in the environment is also the reason for Powdery Mildew in indoor plants.

Solution For Powdery Mildew

The most common and easy solution for this is applying any branded chemical fungicides at the interval of one week until it ends completely.

We will suggest using a low quantity of chemical fungicides. Instead of using chemicals, fungicides, we can also use neem oil as fungicides.

It will make plants healthy and protect them from all different insects and pests. Neem oil will support plants in growth and development plus point it is environment friendly.

Yellowing Of Leaves 

We can’t say yellowing leaves is a disease. There can be many reasons behind Yellowing Of Leaves in Alocasia Polly we are going to mention some of them and their solution.

• It can be a viral infection.
• There are also chances of Nutrient Deficiency as well.
• Less brightness 🔆
• Moisture. 

Viral infection in Elephant’s Ear Plant 

You can easily identify the viral infection in your Alocasia Bambino plant. You will see yellow patches on the leaves of the Elephant’s Ear Plant 1st step is to separate your plant from another plant. The second step to do is pruning an infected part in the plant.

Keep plant in quarantine. If requires, you can use neem oil to control this infection.

Nutrient Deficiency in Alocasia Bambino plant

Yellowing Of Leaves is related to the nitrogen deficiencies in the Alocasia Bambino plant. Below, we have added some deficiency symptoms.

Just add nitrogen fertilizer in the roots zone of the African Mask Plant. It will become green again.

 

Less brightness in the room is also the reason for the yellowing of leaves in the African Mask Plant because in this condition plant’s leaves cannot do the process of photosynthesis and leaves become yellow.

A straightforward solution for this is to keep your African Mask Plant in indirect sunlight. It will become green again.

Moisture stress in African Mask Plant

It is a very common condition when leaves of the plant get yellow because of over-watering, so above we have mentioned that without checking the moisture content in the soil, don’t water your Alocasia Bambino plant.

the simple solution for this is to check before watering if moisture is present in the soil don’t irrigate your plant.

Toxicity in Alocasia Polly

The chemical present in the African Mask Plant is oxalate crystals, which is the only reason which makes this beautiful plant toxic.

It is toxic to pets and also for humans, but it is not dangerous because it only affects when pets or human beings chew the leaves off African Mask Plant and what it will affect, we will see some minor symptoms in animals Pawing at the face or mouth, Oral pain of animals, Decreased in appetite, rarely Vomiting.

In human beings, it will cause oral pain, stomach ache and sometimes vomiting.

We will suggest keeping children and animals away from the plant and try them to teach them how to play with plants without getting injured., this is a very important education that every parent to teach how to fall in love with these beautiful indoor plants.

Conclusion

After reading all the different blogs about Alocasia Polly care. we decided to write Alocasia Polly care blog in an easy way with our own growing experience.

But believe me, all this changed when I started growing Alocasia Polly. It is very easy to manage and care for Alocasia Polly.

I have written about some of my favourite plants you can read these blogs. Also, the first one is Monstera Deliciosa the Swiss Cheese Plant, the second beautiful plant that is my favourite is Philodendron Xanadu, third and last favourite plant is Anthurium Clarinervium. 

If you like this blog, share it with your family and friends. This will help us grow and plants lover to gather interesting knowledge.

Source:- maximum thing in this blog that I have written is my self-experience and the current update that I got about this plant is from the agriculture current affairs blog, goodhousekeeping, edis