i got this alocasia from trader joe’s a little over a year ago. at first she was absolutely thriving (last pic was at her best 🥲). then one day she got spider mites, and it’s all been downhill from there
i cannot for the life of me get rid of the mites. on multiple occasions i have showered and wiped down all leaves + used an insecticide (captain jack’s deadbug) every 3 days to keep them from coming back. they keep coming back
other things to note: she’s many plants in one pot (i didn’t separate for fear of killing her lol) and to add insult to injury, it looks like she’s also developed a fungal infection on some leaves (maybe from spraying the insecticide so much?)
i recently repotted her and she seems happier, but still struggling. i don’t know if i should give up and start over, do a DEEP clean (separate corms, throw out old pon, and repot separately), or keep doing what i’m doing and hope something changes (unlikely lol). what should i do??
other relevant info: in a self-watering pot with a pon-like substrate, receives full fertilization with every watering
by aanklebiiters
2 Comments
i had an antro velvet that was constantlyyyy infected with spider mites. i was spraying it with alcohol every few days and they never let up. so i just cut off all the leaves and started it over. it’s now giving me a pretty leaf free of spider mites. yours has so many leaves so it may be tough to cut them off but it really helped my plant 🥲this is really my only advice lol
Start over if it’s really bad infestation. Remember when you restart a big alocasia, you’ll get big leaves fast. It doesn’t truly “start again” so you won’t go through the baby leaf phase. After a restart, first leaf maybe smaller than ones before that but the second one can be already a bigger one, if the conditions are right.