I received an Alocasia Zebrina as an extravagant Valentine's Day present. Obviously I love it, but I'm way out of my depth with this plant!
I think I've found the ideal part of the house for it, which is our spare room. It's warm all year round (20 oC + minimum). It also gets bags of sunlight, with room to prevent direct exposure.
Before this, it was in the conservatory, where the smallest stem has wrinkled and the leaf yellowed. I'm putting it down to over watering.
Just not sure what to do with the wrinkled stem. Some say cut it off, others say it may recover?
Any advice welcome.
by MontgomeryFandango
3 Comments
Mine just did this. Root rot. It is in rehab now.
They do loose older leaves regularly, so this might be perfectly normal.
This said, a bit of comment on what you wrote:
– Light: Zebrinas are among the most light- hungry houseplants. I have mine on the windowsill of a south facing window (northern hemisphere, so that’s the full sun, most of the day side). Occasionally, she will grow a keaf whose face is practically glued to the window pane. No burns. If she grows leafs in periods with shorter days and mostly clouded skies, these leaves will show all signs of light deprivation even on that south facing windowsill (like getting oblong thin stems).
– Temperature: mine likes it HOT. That’s not saying she can’t survive in an 18°C room – she can. But she thrives on really hot summer days when room temperature nears 30°C or more.
– Water: I won’t say that you can’t overwater a Zebrina: you probably can. But it’s not easy 😁
I have a slight tendency of overwatering plants, but my Zebrina is just always dry. Sometimes I think that if I placed her in a bucket of water, she would just suck everything up, cry it all out over her leaves and start screaming from thirst again next day. The stems start wrinkling when she’s thirsty.
– When I come home and see a Zebrina leaf startet to droop with a wrinkling petiole (but no yellowing leaf yet), I will soak her and place her in a way that forces that petiole to stay upright (like leaning it against the window, for instance). Usually, that cures the problem within a few days. What keeps those long petioles upright is turgor pressure. Or, in plain words: water. When there isn’t enough water filling the cells of those petioles, they will start wrinkling and subsequently drooping. Problem is: those leaves are heavy and those long petioles act like levers. Once down, turgor pressure isn’t enough to lift the leaves again. But if you lift them for her and keep them supported straight for a while, turgor pressure will keep them up again after re- hydration.
Definitely not recovering that.
The only time we leave the leaf that’s dying is if there’s colour in it. If it has green then leave it for a bit as the plant will absorb the energy out of it. Once it turns brown or is all crispy then cut it off as it’s officially useless
That said, a mushy stem is bad for the whole plant so if it’s mushy cut it off.
Alocasias lose leaves it’s normal, however you also need to have ideal conditions for it.
Idk what bags of sunlight mean I’m ngl- never heard that expression lol
Keep it closer to direct light than not, it likes light all plants do. You’d also need to sort that medium out and check the roots out for root rot.
When you repot either pot it in a proper chunky mix of perlite, orchid, leca and like 10% cococoir or into moss, leca set ups or just pon- for these options you’ll need to fully rinse off all the soil from the roots – otherwise it’ll rot.
Good luck