Easy Grow and Care for an Alocasia Polly

You’ve probably seen pictures of the Alocasia Polly on social media or at garden centers; it’s a striking plant with a unique appearance. The African Mask Plant is also known as Alocasia x Amazonica. The Alocasia Amazonica Polly, or African Mask Plant, has a few different names. Its massive, asymmetrical leaves and vivid nerves make it stand out from afar.

The Alocasia Amazonica Polly, like other Alocasias, is a tropical plant with unique desires. Therefore, this may not be the best plant for novice growers. The care of an Alocasia Polly may seem simple at first, but once you’ve mastered it, you’ll be able to handle much more advanced plant care.

Alocasia Polly is a dwarf cultivar of the Amazonian plant Alocasia amazonica, prized for its exquisite beauty. It’s great for indoor gardening because of its compact size. This plant will bring a sense of the tropics to a house or office with its large, intricately patterned leaves.

In the 1950s, a breeder in Florida created the Alocasia Polly cultivar from parent plants that were descended from plants in China, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines.

The gigantic leaves, each with a tropical pattern, are the plant’s most striking characteristic. However, Alocasia Polly doesn’t take up much size, so that it can flourish even in smaller apartments or houses.

Several potential problems can arise when caring for Alocasia Polly, and we’ll review them here. In the process, we’ll go through some simple steps you can care to keep this plant healthy.

alocasia Polly flower

When brought inside and grown in a container, it is quite improbable that an Alocasia Polly will produce flowers. In most cases, blooming will only occur on Alocasia Polly plants grown outside in a tropical climate zone. Summer is the season when the bloom occurs.

The blooms are minute and unimportant; they have a green spathe that encircles a white spadix. The flower stalks of many flowers are removed from the plant before they even bloom as a common practice among growers. Flowering and seed production requires a significant amount of energy, which the Alocasia Polly plant would otherwise be able to channel toward developing its impressively large leaves.

Most of the time, it is not worth your time to work on blooming your Alocasia Polly bloom.

Size and Growth

Because Alocasia Polly was developed to be a more compact variant of Alocasia amazonica, the size of Alocasia Polly will remain on the smaller side. It will reach its full height and spread between 12 and 24 inches over its lifetime. It has a rapid growth rate, generating one or two new leaves every month during the spring and summer months.

About five years is the typical time an Alocasia Amazonica Polly will live. On the other hand, because it may be multiplied by divisions, you can continuously create new, young plants. The Alocasia Polly plant naturally takes on an elegant form, with its leaves drooping gracefully down from its erect stems.

alocasia Polly care

Light

The Alocasia Polly plant prefers medium to high levels of indirect light. Keep in mind that the leaves will dry and fall off if exposed to either too little or too much light.

Water

If you want to keep your Alocasia Polly happy and healthy, sprinkle the soil and moisten it once a week. To prevent root rot caused by overwatering, we must follow our instructions and allow the top two feet of soil to dry out between waterings throughout the winter. Exposure to dry circumstances will cause the plant’s leaf margins to brown.

Soil

Soil for Alocasia Polly needs to hold water and keep the water’s preferred moisture level steady while still being moist enough to let the roots breathe and drain. The Alocasia amazonica plant is mildly acidic, with a pH of 5.5–6.5.

The soil for an Alocasia amazonica can be replaced with a store-bought aroid potting mix if desired. You can use African violet soil to grow Alocasia Polly without other supplemental materials. But you might also try making your soil combination. Conventional indoor potting soil can be turned into well-draining soil that can keep an acceptable quantity of moisture by adding equal parts perlite and peat moss.

Humidity

You may make your Alocasia Polly’s habitat more humid by spraying it frequently, placing it next to other plants, or putting it on a pebble tray with some water. Your Alocasia Polly should thrive in these conditions.

Temperature

Your Alocasia Polly will flourish in conditions where the temperature stays between 65 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s best to keep your distance from unexpected temperature changes or icy breezes.

Fertilizer

Regular fertilizer applications are essential if you want the enormous leaves on your Alocasia amazonica to grow strong and healthy. A fertilizer ratio to phosphate and potassium of 10.10.10 is ideal for Alocasia Polly.

The Alocasia Amazonica Polly is easily cared for with liquid houseplant fertilizers. Diluting the concentration to half of what is recommended will prevent the roots from being burnt. Diluted fertilizer should be applied evenly throughout the soil’s surface. Do this right after watering the plant to let the moisture from the water seep deeper into the soil.

During the active growing season (spring and summer), your Alocasia Polly needs food once a month; however, it should feed no food during the inactive growing season (fall and winter).

Potting & Repotting 

Even though the Alocasia Polly plant can tolerate a little root-bound soil, it must be repotted every two or three years. When you repot the plant, it is possible to create new plants from the roots of an existing Alocasia amazonica.

The potting soil also has to be refreshed at this time. Never go larger than one pot size when repotting an Alocasia Polly, and never use a pot with a width of two inches.

A porous pot will allow the soil to dry out faster. Therefore, glazed clay or plastic is the better option. Be sure there are adequate holes for drainage, though.

Pruning

Pruning is rarely required for Alocasia Polly. You can’t keep the Alocasia Polly at a manageable height by pruning back on its top growth because new leaves appear only on older stems. Don’t snip the plant’s healthy branches or leaves.

An Alocasia amazonica plant needs no other pruning to save the removal of any damaged or diseased leaves. The Alocasia Polly’s aesthetic appeal will be diminished, and the leaves may harbor pests and illnesses. Instead of merely cutting off the leaf, pull the entire stem out of the soil. Always use clean, sharp blades or scissors when trimming to keep your Alocasia Amazonica Polly looking its best.

Toxicity

It is toxic to keep Alocasia Polly out of the reach of both people and animals, especially younger children and animals.

Take Extra Care

Because its predecessors lived in semi-aquatic environments such as swamps, the Alocasia Polly plant can be easily propagated in water. Move the plant to a warmer location while it is dormant and cut back on the watering it receives until the spring when it will begin to grow again.

Dormancy

As winter approaches and the temperature decreases, your Alocasia Polly will enter its dormancy period. For example, this could mean that the Alocasia Polly will halt its development or even stop growing until spring, though this is not necessarily the case with all plants.

It’s important to limit the plant’s watering and fertilization at this time, as it’s dormant. Your Polly will not need as much care now that it is no longer growing.

During this period of dormancy, the Alocasia Amazonica Polly may start to drop its leaves. There’s a chance it could drop every leaf. In other words, this doesn’t mean that your plant is dying and can safely be thrown away. In the early spring, your Polly will resume putting out new leaves, and they should keep doing so normally throughout the growing season. The current condition of the plant is a natural part of its life cycle.

alocasia Polly propagation

Propagating an Alocasia plant is easiest by dividing the rhizome. The technique of Alocasia Polly propagation is usually quite simple.

Remember that your Alocasia Amazonica Polly must propagate a certain size before you can begin the propagation process. Extremely young plants do not have a fully developed root system. Therefore, any attempt to propagate them too soon would fail.

Repotting your Alocasia in the spring will give you the best results, and you may simply propagate the plant from its rhizome. The following are the steps you need to take to propagate your Alocasia Polly:

• Rhizome propagation can begin as soon as the arrow-shaped leaf is removed from the container.

• First, you should give your Alocasia a thorough shake to get rid of any excess soil, and then you should divide the rhizome into several smaller pieces. Depending on the size of the rhizome, this area may or may not yield a large number of pieces. Let the rhizomes some time to dry in the air after cutting them before proceeding.
• Once that’s done, the rhizomes can be transplanted into a new pot (s). When planting a rhizome, the top of the crown does not touch the soil. You should use a mixture of peat and sand for the soil.
• Maintaining a warm environment with high humidity is crucial for the successful propagation of your Alocasia. If new shoot tips appear after root division, you can assume it was successful.

variegated alocasia Polly

A simple definition of variegation combines two or more colors to create a new one. Common in our flora is a form of variegation known as chimerical variegation. The issue originates from a mutation in the genes. Randomly colored leaves of various shades of white, light green, yellow, and orange will begin to appear on a previously all-green plant.

Variegated alocasia Polly often has two types of cells: those that contain chlorophyll and those that do not. The rivalry between these two types of cells within the plant might lead the leaf to turn completely white or cause the plant to revert to its original green color.

This second phenomenon occurs when the plant recognizes that the green parts (those containing chlorophyll) are more beneficial because they produce more sugars and starches, which are necessary for the plant’s existence. Over time, they realize that green leaves are best for their development and abandon their variegated state.

This Polly is a Variegated Alocasia, but its leaves often revert to their normal, non-variegated form. Even if there is sufficient light, the variegation is, unfortunately, somewhat erratic.

Common problems Alocasia Polly

Pests

Rarely do bugs cause damage to Alocasia Polly. Most Alocasia amazonica plants will have spider mites as a pest. It’s quite unlikely that any other kinds of bugs exist here. Insects like spider mites feed on the sap of Alocasia Polly plants, leaving behind a pattern of small white or yellow spots that eventually turn brown as they dry up.

In more advanced infestations, spider mites may be hard to spot due to their small size; nonetheless, their sticky webs will still be present.

Take the Alocasia Amazonica Polly with you into the shower and give all of the surfaces a thorough soaking. The bugs should be fixed now. Leaves can be cleansed with a neem oil solution once a month to eliminate the pests entirely.

alocasia Polly care brown spots

The brown spots on your alocasia Polly typically indicate that you are getting too much sunlight (sunburn). Remove your plant from the bright sunlight immediately. Transfer it to a spot where there is more shade.

alocasia Polly’s yellow leaves

When houseplants’ leaves start to turn yellow, it’s usually because they aren’t getting enough water. The water is, and we see this in our Alocasia Polly as well, that this can be a sign of either overwatering or underwatering. It’s possible that either extreme is to blame.

For this reason, you must gauge how much water you’re supplying and whether you’re offering too much. The water needs of Alocasia Polly are quite particular.

Keeping the soil moist at all times is crucial, and you should water your plants almost daily; this is especially true in the summer when they are actively growing. Reduce the amount of water your plants receive when the weather cools, and allow the soil to become slightly dry. But there should never be a moment when the soil is completely dry.

alocasia amazonica vs polly

There are two hybrid Alocasia species: the Alocasia Polly and the Alocasia amazonica. The ‘Polly’ kind consistently remains smaller than the other, which is the only discernible variation between the two species. They may not be the most user-friendly plants, but if you can fulfill their needs, they will be well worth the investment.

Is it okay to bring my Alocasia ‘Polly’ outside?

Alocasias thrive outside in warm climates; that much is certain. During the summer, you can put the potted Alocasia plant outside, where it will get some sun and shade, such as under a tree canopy or on a covered porch.

You shouldn’t leave it in the sun for too long and bring it inside if the temperature dips below 65 degrees Fahrenheit (which can burn the leaves).

How can you make an Alocasia plant’s leaves look glossy?

It’s important to keep the leaves of your Alocasia plant clean to prevent the buildup of dust and the spread of pests like spider mites. It is possible to remove the shine off your leaves with minimal effort by wiping them down with a soft, damp cloth from top to bottom.

Where can I go to buy an Alocasia Polly?

It is not tough to locate Alocasia Polly on Amazon. However, these plants can be expensive, varying from $25 to $65. Even more so, Alocasia Polly is sold on the online marketplace Etsy.com.

Is Alocasia Polly a good indoor plant for beginners?

Alocasia Polly is not a plant that amateur gardeners should start due to the high level of care and attention it takes. If you’ve just discovered that you enjoy caring for houseplants, it may be best to start with the one that doesn’t need as much TLC.