Alocasia is supposed to be a difficult houseplant. Mine, however, is absolutely thriving in hydro culture with porous clay granules, with absolutely minimum effort!
I bought an Alocasia at IKEA for just a few euros, removed the soil and planted it in clay pebbles. No heating mats, no grow lights and no complicated care routines. Just clay pebbles, a pot with a water-level indicator and a location that was questionable, to say the least.
Now, a few years later, it has grown into a magnificent plant with enormous leaves. And this morning, in the middle of October, I discovered something particularly exciting:
My Alocasia is flowering! 😃
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| My Alocasia is thriving in hydro culture with porous clay granules. |
I'm Definitely Not a Born With a Green Thumb!
A few years ago, an interior designer gave me some hints on how to make our architecturally modern home feel a little cosier and welcoming.
One of her suggestions was to add more green plants.
And she was absolutely right! Plants make such a difference to the atmosphere of a home. Most of our houseplants have come from friends. I think that's a particularly lovely way to acquire plants. Every time I water a plant I've received from a friend, I think of that person.
But my Alocasia came from IKEA.
I spotted it there and instantly fell in love with its leaves. That gorgeous dark green colour, the pale veins and the unusual shape!
At the time, I was looking for a suitable plant for the space underneath our living-room staircase. Direct sunlight never reaches that spot, and according to the care instructions that came with the plant, an Alocasia would also be suitable for a shadier location.
A beautiful plant, a suitable location and an affordable price. I bought it!
Once I got home, I started looking into how I should care for it.
What on Earth Had I Bought?
I watched one YouTube video after another about caring for Alocasias.
And I became more and more horrified!
According to those videos, I'd bought an impossibly demanding plant. Apparently, it needed carefully controlled conditions and all sorts of special equipment.
Some people had heating mats underneath their pots to keep the roots warm. Others had grow lights, humidity meters and all kinds of elaborate arrangements to create ideal growing conditions.
Good heavens!
All I wanted was a beautiful green plant to make our home more welcoming. Not a botanical laboratory in the living room! I was pretty disappointed. Perhaps I'd bought completely the wrong plant.
But I decided to give it a chance anyway, after all, I had paid it already. Not much, and yet, it is about the principle.
Straight into the Clay Pebbles!
The plant I'd bought actually consisted of two Alocasias growing side by side, like twins. Two for the price of one!
I removed the soil, carefully washed the roots and planted them in a beautiful pot without drainage holes, filled with expanded clay granules from brand "Seramis". The brand really does not matter but that is the common brand here in Austria.
Then I placed the pot underneath the staircase, where I'd originally planned, next to a beautiful ancient crucifix I'd received as a gift from a dear friend in Vienna.
My expectations weren't high. I feared the worst. I thought the leaves would start turning brown within a few weeks and I'd have to find another plant to take its place.
But nothing happened. Week after week. And that was good news! For about six months, the Alocasia simply stood there looking just as beautiful and fresh as it had on the day I bought it.
Then one day, I noticed the beginning of a new leaf!
Hooray! And soon another new leaf appeared. Apparently, this impossibly difficult plant was quite happy in our home.
How about the light requirements?
There's one important thing I should point out here.
I live in Austria, and winter light conditions here in Central Europe are different from those in North Europe or Canada.
My Alocasia really has managed well underneath the staircase, at the back of our living room, in a shady spot that never receives direct sunlight.
But we don't have the kind of polar darkness experienced in Northern Europe. The sun rises every day even in winter, although it often remains hidden behind a thick blanket of fog. In other words, we still get some daylight!
So I can't promise that an Alocasia would be equally happy in such a dark corner of a Nordic home without additional lighting.
Alocasias don't need blazing sunshine, but they do need light. In nature, they grow in tropical forests, sheltered beneath the trees - shadow with light.
My Alocasia Outgrew Its Spot
After about two years, our Alocasia had grown so large that its leaves were beginning to cover the crucifix. The plant had simply become too big for its original location. So I decided to separate the twins.
The smaller one stayed underneath the staircase, while the larger one got a new, bigger self-watering pot beside our enormous windows front.
The windows face south, so plenty of daylight enters the room. However, the patio roof provides shade during the hottest and sunniest part of the day. And in summer, we also shade the windows with external blinds. So the plant doesn't have to suffer in blazing sunshine.
In this corner, the Alocasia gets plenty of light but hardly any direct sunlight.
And it absolutely loves its new location! Immediately after the move, new leaves began appearing. And more leaves. And even more!
Now it has grown into a truly spectacular houseplant, with its enormous leaves spreading out like a fan in different directions.
I'm so proud of it! So proud, in fact, that it became the subject of my very first plant article on this blog.
And Now It's Flowering! 😍
This morning, while we were having breakfast, I said to my husband:
"Look! Another new leaf is coming!"
But when we went over to take a closer look, we discovered something quite different.
It wasn't a leaf. It was a flower!
Our Alocasia is flowering in the middle of October!
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| My Alocasia is flowering! |
The Alocasia's inflorescence has a fleshy, spike-like structure in the centre, surrounded by a modified leaf called a spathe.
It's certainly not a showy flower like a rose or an orchid, but I find it absolutely fascinating. And to me, it's another sign that the plant is happy.
When I remember all those warnings I heard about how difficult this plant supposedly was, seeing it flower feels like a particularly wonderful achievement.
Why Did I Choose Hydroculture, Self-Watering Pots and Clay Pebbles?
When the interior designer encouraged us to get more houseplants, I had to think about how that could possibly work for us. After looking into the options, I concluded that the only realistic solution for us was hydroculture, using expanded clay pebbles.
There were two very practical reasons.
First, I'm definitely not a born gardener.
I love beautiful plants, but I'm certainly not going to spend hours every week looking after them. And I definitely don't want to keep wondering whether they've had too much or too little water. To be perfectly honest, with my ADHD-style tendency to flit from one thing to another, that kind of constant attention is completely unrealistic!
Second, we travel a lot.
Often for months at a time, and during those periods our dear neighbour looks after the plants. And he has even less of a green thumb than I do!
Watering plants grown in ordinary soil often involves quite a bit of guesswork. Is the soil dry enough? Does this plant need water already? Have I given it too much? It seems to require some mysterious gardener's instinct to know when to add water to a pot.
My hydro culture pots have water-level indicators. Anyone can read those!
Of course, different plants need different amounts of water, but the indicator helps you keep track of that, too!
And this is particularly important when somebody else is looking after our plants while we're away.
Are Clay Pebbles Better Than Soil?
I'm not claiming that growing plants in hydroculture and in clay pebbles is automatically better than growing them in soil, not at all! Different plants have different needs.
But I'm also a realist. For my personality and lifestyle, keeping plants in water and clay pebbles in is an excellent compromise.
I can enjoy beautiful houseplants without spending an unreasonable amount of time caring for them. And it makes life much easier for our neighbour when we're travelling.
These are exactly the experiences I want to share more about.
More Experiences Coming Soon!
I'm planning to write several articles about growing houseplants in expanded clay pebbles, self-watering pots and even just water. If I manage to have multiple plants after killing dozens, anyone can.
I'll introduce the plants that have done particularly well in our home and show how I transfer plants into clay pebbles and look after my plants, with minimalistic effort.
I absolutely love having a little jungle at home without having to spend half my life looking after it!
And when we're away for months at a time, our neighbour can take care of everything without too much trouble.