Fixing Rotting Alocasias

Okay, how are we doing temperature-wise? Does that feel good to you? A little warm, gonna let that cool off. Sun is very, very, very strong today. Things get toasty inside that hose reel over there. Sits out there in the sun and just, well, it's in the shade now that I'm talking about it. It was in the sun all morning, you know what I mean. Hey, what's up, gardener friends? Jeff here, is everything dope? You're doing well, I'm great. I just dug up this beautiful Alocasia from my landscape. It's about to get culled out. That time of year, it's fall. I like to dig these up before we have temperatures dropping really below 50, but usually I let them go until we're dropping around 40 Fahrenheit, that is. This is one that's very special to me. It's called the Golden Dragon. It's one of my favorites. I don't know about its rarity or anything like that. It's just special because it's pretty, and I like it. Nothing all that special with it. I dig it up, and I actually don't get a lot of the soil with it intentionally. I put the shovel pretty close to the base. and get it loose enough that i can pull it out get the tuber and all with some roots on it and you can see here i don't have a lot of soil in there either now there's different ways to do things it all varies on how you're going to keep your plants this one right here not that complicated because it's tuber already has some roots on it i have some nudias over here i'll show you in just a minute they need also get potted up those are gonna be a little bit different for the most part let me get down here so you can actually see what's going on this is a very very very well drained mix you can see i don't have that much soil in the pot it just doesn't need it It's not necessary. I could have used a smaller pot but they tend to tip over more. My main focus is going to be getting this plant established in this container without also rotting it. That's the magic trick with Alocasias. They like to rot. Tend to rot, not like to rot. Are you waiting for water? Are you just checking things out? Do you want some water? You can have some. Yeah, you got better water in the pool. Go on, go have fun. And yeah, I expected that to happen. There's a lot of water in there. There's a huge drainage hole in the bottom of this container. Last year, when I brought this plant in, I used it in an air pruning pot. So it was a pot that holds all along the sides. And it did really well in that container. But the growth was also very, very, very slow. So this, I was like, let's just put it in a good container. You know, one that seems sturdy. Don't fill it up with soil. Make sure it drains really well. And we'll see how that works. It might be able to keep the soil moist a little bit longer. Typically, we want that really fast-draining soil. It's great with the Alocasias, but... I also don't want them to rot. You know, there's a nice middle ground you want to find. Typically, when I'm keeping my alocasia inside, I'm okay with them drying out in between waterings. But when I have them in my growth space, where it's much more warm and humid, I usually keep them consistently moist, but it's also, it's warm and humid in there. It's not like it is inside the house. Growth space is the garage, that's why it's pointing over. It's right there, in case you didn't know. What was going on with that? Now, I should... If I can find my scissors, if not, I'll just tell you about it. Where'd my scissors go? There we go. Scissors right here. Come in here, trim out the older growth, and I'm just going to leave a little bit on here. Now, if you have really delicate type alocasias... Maybe don't do that. But this right here, this is a cross between a lutea and a portora, which are pretty sturdy plants. For right now, I'm gonna allow this to go ahead and sit at an angle, but ultimately, I'm gonna wanna stabilize this, which I've done that with old floral foam blocks before. You can put those in there. There's lots of airflow with those floral foam blocks, which is a good thing. That's what we want. It'll help stabilize them. Use a gravel or something like that that's gonna hold moisture in the soil. It's not a great idea. Not with the way I'm doing things right now. I want to be able to water this frequently. I'm gonna wanna be able to give this root stimulator and whatnot to get it moving. Can't do that frequently if it's gonna hold on to a lot of moisture. And if you have a lot of stuff on top of the soil, it's gonna hold on to even more moisture. Over here I have some little luteas. They need to get potted up. They're not looking that hot, but they'll recover, they're gonna be okay. Oh, and keeping the guy out of the direct sun also, good idea. Good idea. They need some shade. They're trying to establish themselves. I know the lighting is horrible right now. It's just, it's the time of year. It's hard to fill in my backyard right now. Bring you down closer. It's a little bit better than as much of the blown out stuff in the background. So these right here, these are luteas. I had a pretty large clump of luteas in a container and one day they started to fall over in their pot and I said, uh oh. Gave them a little tug. They pulled right up and out of the soil. They were rotting. That's what that was about. There wasn't enough air flow in the soil and so there was too much moisture. and they actually started to lift themselves out so the soil line was right about here and they started to grow up and out of the soil sometimes when you see them do that that's indicative of a problem so what i did with them was i pulled them up i laid them over here to dry i cut away the mushy stuff that was in there and then sorry you're gonna hear me smacking mosquitoes occasionally rinse them with peroxide wash that off let it dry and then i sprayed them down with a copper-based fungicide and then allowed them to dry completely you can see these are fully healed No mush left in there, so they are safe to plant. I'll try and remove a bunch of this stuff off of there if I can. These are not going to go into big pots. It's actually, it's probably going to seem shockingly small. Not that shocking. You've seen this one right here, right? Which means you have an idea. Which, that pot's fine for this one. It isn't anything that big. They don't need a lot of space, right? If you have too much space, there's not going to be room. Or there's going to be too much room, I should say. Sorry, I'm so distracted by the mosquitoes. They're really bad right now. It's hard to focus when they're flying in your face constantly. Too much soil means excess moisture. That was the whole point I was making over there with that other one. So I'm keeping it on the smaller side for now, and then just have to be prepared to pot these up fairly quickly. Probably in about, I don't know, six weeks, I would think. This one at least will be ready to go. They should all be ready to go into a new pot in about six to eight weeks, I would think. I'm not going to fill it up too high. These are going to be going inside here pretty soon, and I like to have a big lip. Excuse you, Turbo. I like to have a lot of grace space in here so I can water and not have soil pouring all over the place. So that's why that's down in there. Now, this big one, I should probably find a one-gallon for. I think I might be out of those. So the main thing is just to get it into some soil. This one here is going to be kind of tight, too. I'm going to poke around and see if I can find something bigger, but I don't want to go much bigger than a four-inch container, so nothing bigger than a six-inch for sure. The overall time elapsed to let these dry is probably... It's been about a week. Something like that. Maybe a week and a half. They have some shriveling on them, but that's okay. Better that they have some shrivel on them than to be continuing to rot. Thank you, Turbo. What I wanted was a sopping wet, cold dog toy on my foot. This is Pro-Mix, not sponsored or anything like that. I just like the drainage on it for the Alocasias. This is the BX, yeah, the BX Mix, which is said to have nice Mycorrhizae inoculation or something. I don't know if I buy that. There's so many factors that go into whether or not mycorrhizae is going to do anything. So, you know, I mean, I take that part with a grain of salt. Proves in the pudding. We see how they root out and that's still not really proof. That was some good. I actually like get in there and explore the various fungal cultures, which I am not. You see this one, it doesn't have a very good growth habit. That's because it was laying here flat. So could avoid that by hanging them, hanging them upside down. That would be okay. No reason to waste energy on that leaf. It was pulling some energy back into the tuber, which is great, but I think it's better to just get it off there so there's not all that extra weight pulling it down. It'll start to grow up naturally on its own this way. Less resistance. And then the last big one, that'll still fit in here. The reason that I like to go with smaller containers i told you one that's about moisture that is important when trying to establish a plant i have found that being able to water more frequently makes a big difference and that's only true though i should say if you are there's a big stick in there that shouldn't be what's your friend sticks in this mix that's generally only the case if you're adding to your water right so i'll be adding about a quarter strength fertilizer When I water these, now the first time I water, or really the second time, right now I'm just gonna use water. Second time I water these then, I'm going to use a root stimulator. You know, people have varying opinions on those, but I have a whole bunch, so I just say, why not? I've used it with Alocasias plenty of times. Never heard anything about it, so I'm not growing the super rare, delicate type Alocasias. Use more of the larger landscape types. They're pretty sturdy compared to those little jewel types. I still, I mean, a root simulator shouldn't hurt those either, but if you overdo anything, it could hurt. There's like a wood chipper or something. Is that the neighbor's house? It sounds awful. Is that a wood chipper? You can probably hear it. It's a very aggressive background noise. With these, something important to talk about here. Try and make so you can see here. So that right there, that's planted just a smidge too deep because I'm having to worry about rot with this plant. So when I'm trying to work with a plant that has been dealing with rot, I like to plant them just a smidge higher than I normally would so some of that tuber just the very top of it is exposed because that way I can do that frequent watering that I was talking about. I'm going to have roots develop much much much more quickly if there's a lot of oxygen down here inside that container and if they're getting frequent watering. Okay this is kind of cool because of the sunlight and the type of plant. I don't know if it's going to show on camera but you can see where you want to cut this one. The leaf has died off up here on top. I'm going to cut that all the way up there and then show you where that new leaf is going to come out. You see how it's a more green? I hope that's coming through on camera. You can see it right in there. See that green? So that's where a new leaf is going to develop. And then there's a line in here. It's really going to be difficult to show you on camera. You can see it looks like a seam. You see this seam? So a new leaf is going to come out of right there. So I want to cut above I love that, but I don't know. A couple of inches. I really would probably be fine to go ahead and cut this one all the way down, but this looks like from the bulge, there's a little bulge in here, it's probably not going to be too far from trying to push a leaf out. And we want foliage on these. Oh no, you're going to get me. I said foliage. Foliage. Sorry. It's a regional thing. I grew up around people who said foliage. I've learned my ways. I try to say foliage now. But. Uh, frequent fertilizing, low dose fertilizing, quarter strength, first time watering, I'm just using water because I want to pre-moisten that soil. I don't want to water this in with a root stimulator because a lot of that's just going to be flushing out of the pot, right? I want to do that when the soil already has some moisture to it so that it will actually stick around the base of the plant. Does that make sense? And the most important thing is going to be airflow when dealing with plants that I'm bringing out from having root rot. they have to have lots of airflow so there is a mix that's called the HP mix you can use or you can just add to your soil you can add extra perlite you can add pumice there's all kinds of things you can do to increase the loftiness of a potting mix there's more airflow you can also cut holes in the sides of the containers i mentioned before that other bigger alocasia last year i grew that in a pot that's called an air trainer and that's just a container that has holes all up and down the sides of the container it has a lot of airflow in there i find those I find those to be really useful for larger Alocasias. It did so well in it that I don't think it actually needed it. That's why I'm trying it this other way. But for ones that are more delicate, it's not a bad idea. Or if maybe you can't keep the grow space very warm, so you have to be a lot more concerned about rotting a plant, then those are probably a good idea. Self-watering containers, awesome. I wouldn't go that route with these, personally. I want these to start to establish themselves first. It's going to take some more hands-on, one-on-one care for several weeks. Then after that, could transition them over to a self-watering container. yeah i really want to be able to water these and see that water flush through really i'll probably be doing that about i don't know maybe every two to three days these will be getting a drink just enough to have it wash all the way through it needs to be consistently moist They should spring back just fine, fairly quickly. Now if it were a warmer part of year, and I weren't, weren't, I wasn't going to have to move these inside in the next few weeks when our temperatures drop outside, then honestly I wouldn't stress about all these things. This is all stuff that's more for if you have to keep these plants inside. Outside, it all applies, but I would go ahead and put these up into bigger pots probably. Because there's more heat outside, there's more airflow, the soil is not gonna stay as dry as long as it will inside. Does that make sense? There's always lots of ways to do things. I do find that alocasias oftentimes get overcomplicated. Just cut them back, get the rot off of them, make sure it's clean, make sure they have plenty of time to dry after you've cut everything off. And then replant them with the soil that drains really well. Keep them consistently moist. Provide heat. That's the best thing you can do. Maybe put them in a heat mat if you have to. And boom. You'll have happy new plants within like, I don't know, a couple months. These should get pretty big. I'm actually okay with this. The lutea, it had divided up and I needed to pull it from its container and divide it anyway. So this just kind of did it for me. So, you know, win-win. Not really for the plant, but it'll be okay. Have more to work with now. Okay. Hey, thanks for hanging out. What do you do with your alocasias during the wintertime? Tips, tricks, suggestions for how you deal with rot. Like I said, I'm not really talking about the jewel types here. It is essentially the same information, but they're more delicate to change. So basically everything I just said, but in a much more gradual manner, probably, was those. And definitely have to keep the humidity way up for them, too. They all appreciate the humidity. But these luteas and portoras, which this is a cross of both of those, and this one right here is just a lutea. I don't know. They're not as... Messy about those things. It's the fancy alocasias are. At least not in the house. Spider mites and stuff. That's a whole other video. That's all about care. Or just say hi. I love talking to everybody. Let's go out in your gardens. All right, thanks for hanging out. Hope everybody's doing well. Having a great day, great life. Absolutely beautiful. Oh, turbo. You need a drink. Wipe your face. As always, and most importantly, everybody, keep on growing. Bye. Bye.