Alocasia Silver Dragon is a beautiful houseplant. It does well in bright light, but will grow and flower best when placed in the shade or filtered sunlight. Its leaves are silver-green and its flowers are white with purple specks, making it look like snowflakes on fire. This plant can be dried for long term storage to save money if you want to keep it alive forever.
Alocasia Silver Dragon is a plant that can be found in many different colors. The leaves of the plant turn yellow when they are not getting enough sunlight. The best way to care for this plant is by putting it in direct sunlight, or under fluorescent light.
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Because of their textures and rigidity, Alocasia silver dragons have a mystical air around them. When you see a plant, you’ll instinctively gravitate towards it, and don’t be shocked if your hands are left feeling it on both sides.
The silvery tone with a hint of crystalline properties will mimic dragon scales. The plant originated in Eastern Borneo, where the terrain is rich in calcium-based limestone lands, despite being a hybrid form of the alocasia baginda.
Don’t be intimidated, however. The growth and care of these plants is considered straightforward by DIY gardeners, and all you have to do is get started.
This plant’s superb elegance will surely bless any outdoor or indoor garden. Let’s look at how to care for and cultivate alocasia silver dragon plants.
Check out the 23 greatest terrarium plants to cultivate as a bonus read.
Contents
Alocasia Dragon Scale Characteristics
Here are some of the characteristics that make this plant a favorite among ornamental gardeners:
#1. Foliage
These plants have greenish-silver leaves that progressively get darker as they go closer to the center. This contrast gives the lighter part a more lively appearance. The bottom part of the leaves is decorated with delicate white hues. What’s more, their undersides have red veins that will delight any garden aficionado.
As the plants get older, the leaves develop richer color tones. If you’re considering a terrarium, their penchant for small spaces makes them an excellent contender.
Even better, alocasia dragon scales are perfect for adding contrast to existing foliage or as a stand-alone green beauty.
#2. Height
Be aware that these plants may quickly reach a height of three feet and a width of one foot. Also, avoid overwatering or overfeeding your plants since such gardening practices will never benefit their development. In reality, the plant will have a difficult time processing vast volumes of food and water. This causes them to suffer even in the most ideal of environments.
#3. Resilient
Gardeners will be pleased to learn that this plant may stay evergreen indefinitely. Regardless of the season, if you let it to thrive in its optimum setting, this beautiful marvel of the plant life will maintain the beauty of your garden.
Bonus Read: Are you interested in the health advantages of lavender plants? Check out these 15 lavender plants that you can cultivate in your yard.
Weather Tolerance #4
Silver dragon Alocasia thrives in humid environments. You must keep them away from chilly temperatures because to their tropical roots. Make sure it’s in an area with warmer temps.
Unfortunately, because of its acute sensitivity to the weather, it slows down its development when exposed to frost. Furthermore, it will begin to droop and exhibit malnutrition-like characteristics. As a result, be particularly cautious about where you chose to grow the plant. Keep it under the influence of sunshine or a heater if you’re inside.
Even worse, if the plant is kept damp for an extended period of time, it will succumb to pests and illnesses.
#5: Low Tolerance to Disease
When infected by illnesses, such plants will struggle to live. If diseases like leaf spots, Xanthomonas, or root and stem root begin to appear, try using homemade compost or insecticides and pesticides.
A golden ring dotted with unsightly brown or black marks is typically indicative of such disorders.
Remember that poor watering cycles are the source of many illnesses. While little watering is also bad for alocasia silver dragon plants, over watering is the worst. As a result, avoid waterlogged soil and dry the leaves if it seems to be excessively moist. The dryness will eliminate the possibility of your plant contracting a fungal infection.
If your plant becomes infected, don’t throw it out completely. Cut the sick leaves and stems depending on the degree of the illness. Isolate it from your other gardening activities to prevent illness from spreading to surrounding plants.
Poor Pest Tolerance #6
As poor as this plant’s disease tolerance is, its pest tolerance levels are just as severe—especially for pests like spider mites, aphids, and fungus-inducing bugs.
Maintaining and adhering to a sanitary plant washing procedure is your best hope for keeping these hazardous organisms at bay. Spray the stems and leaves with soapy, warm water every three weeks and wipe them clean. You will not only repel bugs and make them uncomfortable, but you will also sweep away dirt particles that obstruct the plant’s absorption processes.
Keep pest-killing products as natural as possible if you must use them. Use margosa oil, also known as Indian lilac or neem oil, for the finest effects. This is a refined vegetable oil obtained by pressing several neem tree fruits and seeds.
Overuse of any kind of chemical, whether natural or synthetic, will harm the plant.
#7. Rate of Growth
When put in their optimal habitat, such as weather that resembles the summer season, Alocasia silver dragon plants develop quickly.
Do not be concerned if your plant’s development rate slows down during the winter or wet season. Cold conditions are known to slow down the development of some plants. Keep in mind that dormancy is a common feature that occurs as a result of the plant’s sensitivity to low light. A tiny percentage of leaves may have flaws to the point that gardeners believe they are dead.
These warning indications must be accepted as part of growing and caring for an alocasia dragon plant. Restart watering and place your plant in well-lit, high-temperature areas until the soil is completely dry. Thick, nourishing water-infused tubers begin to bloom beneath the soil after a few months. Keep waiting until you see your plant’s regeneration process come to life since you can’t see it.
Alocasia Silver Dragon Plants: Growing and Caring
Most critical, give the humidity that the plant demands. Try to obtain as near to 80 percent humidity as possible to stimulate its development. Start putting trays filled with water near the plant unless you have a proven result-oriented watering cycle. You may also keep them in a container with a variety of other tropical plants to control humidity levels.
During the winter, you may either buy a humidifier or put one in the bathroom since baths produce a lot of steam.
Demands for Lighting
Place your plant in a bright yet indirect light source. Because direct sunlight may discolor the greenery, position it near a sunny window or use a curtain to deflect the light. Consider an east-facing window; there’s nothing like it! Put your plant two feet away from the window.
DIY gardeners should develop the practice of turning their plants 90 degrees clockwise. After each watering cycle, this rotation must be completed. You’ll evenly expose all sides of the plant to the required lighting conditions, in addition to ensuring balanced development.
If you wish to keep this plant outside, make sure it has enough of shade. This helps to keep the day’s heat at bay. The silvery texture of the leaves will be destroyed and discolored if they are exposed to direct sunlight.
On party evenings, well-lit gardens may seem to be a la-la land scenario! Check out these fantastic backyard lighting design ideas.
Requirements for Watering
Based on the soil and lighting conditions, Requirements for Watering can be judged. In case the chosen soil has moisture-retention properties and the light exposure is enough, it won’t require much watering.
Water these plants the same way you would succulents in your yard.
However, do not submerge the plant since it would destroy its linked still developing root system. Wait until the uppermost soil layer has dried off before watering. Because the thick leaves and stems are known to hold moisture, you may unintentionally provide it with more than it need.
Gardeners in tropical zones should water their plants three times weekly during the summer and once weekly during the winter. If you’re growing the alocasia silver dragon indoors, reduce the watering schedule to once every two weeks. Overall, they thrive in damp conditions but cannot live in saturated soil. Maintain an equal moisture level in the soil throughout the plant’s life cycle.
Water the plant well, but wait until the top two inches of the mixture have dried before watering again. Also, wet the soil deeply enough to saturate it and flush out any remaining impurities when watering.
Soil Situation
The idea is to give the soil with a continuous supply of fresh oxygen for its roots. The soil for these plants should have four main characteristics:
- Chunky
- Well-drained
- Loose
- Porous
Combine it with peat moss, organic matter, or slow-release fertilizer as a soil addition. Mix in perlite or sand to soften up the soil if it seems to be too bulky. All of the aforementioned component kinds will increase soil fertility and water retention capacity. Above that, the existing fauna and other aeration ingredients form air holes, which improve ventilation and offer warmth to the roots.
Select a seed starting mix that will help your plant’s root system cope with overwatering issues.
Note: If a large quantity of sand isn’t loosening the soil, double-check the principal component in the soil. Its elements are likely to be incompatible with the alocasia silver dragon plant.
The Perfect Temperature
Temperatures of 55 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit are ideal for promoting the development of these thick-leafed plants. When the ambient temperature drops below 55 degrees Fahrenheit, these plants begin to develop considerably more slowly.
Low temperatures cause slower metabolism rates since temperature is directly linked to a plant’s metabolism rate. Thus, despite the fact that their development seems to have slowed, they are still producing food inside the huge leaves, which is why bringing them indoors in the autumn is a smart idea.
Tip: Keep them out of direct sunlight and water them often if temps get beyond 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
Fertilizers
These plants thrive in Soil Situation that provide calcium in abundance. This is because calcium equips the plant with disease resistance and boosts its cell growth. If you think the calcium content in your soil is low, blend in bone meal Fertilizers for a better output.
Bonus Resource: Learn how to utilize bone meal fertilizer in your garden with this tutorial.
Fertilizers with a high nitrogen concentration are also effective. Just make sure it’s not a low-cost, low-quality fertilizer that causes harmful crystal development in the soil. Stick to a bi-monthly feeding schedule, since the remaining nutrients are supplied by adding organic materials to the soil (mulch, manure, etc.).
Because the alocasia silver dragon plant is a light feeder, overfertilization is more prevalent than undernourishment.
Methods of Propagation
To begin, put these plants in clay pots and wait until spring or summer to repot them.
While trimming is not required because to their sturdy structure, feel free to remove any withered leaves. Even leaves that seem to have been infected may be removed.
The alocasia silver dragon plants may be propagated in two ways:
Begin by creating a potting mix with the right soil elements and a little water. Remove the plant from its original container and spray the dirt away from the roots. To ensure that the roots are completely cleansed, use a hose.
Most importantly, many clumps will provide order to the roots. Divide the clusters from the roots using a sterile knife. Finally, moisten these clusters and arrange them in various containers. You will see the growth of clump root systems over time.
These plants produce bulbils on their underground runners. These bulbils are sometimes visible on the soil’s surface. Once these bulbils reach a centimeter in width, cut them off at the base (resembling a shallot).
Choose a wet seed starting mix right away and sow these bulbils. To speed up the growth cycle, use a 50:50 blend of peat and moist sphagnum moss. Furthermore, moisten the beginning mix with lukewarm water on a frequent basis and maintain the pot at warmer temps.
These bulbils will develop into plants in three weeks at most. There should be no issues as long as the substrate does not dry up and the pot is kept out of the cold.
Alocasia Silver Dragon Plants Have Issues
Here are four frequent issues that might lead to the death of your plant:
- Leaf edema is detected by the presence of moist, saturated patches on the leaf. These discolored defects are caused by severe overwatering. Such conditions promote illness and need the use of fresh, loose, and aerated soils. Remember to get rid of these unhealthy spots.
- Wilting or drooping leaves: This is another symptom of waterlogging, which causes root rot. If the roots of the plant are dark and mushy rather than white and sturdy, the root system is decomposing. It is quite hard to save the whole plant under such circumstances. Gardeners may, however, pick plantlets and re-pot them in better soil.
- Caterpillars: These are easier to deal with since all you have to do is knock the caterpillar off the plant. Caterpillar assaults may be identified by “cheese holes” around the margins of the leaves.
- When the alocasia silver dragon plants are exposed to cold or warm drafts, the leaves fall off suddenly. Such drafts weaken the leaves very rapidly, and they begin to fall near the entrance, window, or any other spot in your greenhouse.
Verdict
This plant belongs to the exotic plant group, as the phrase “dragon” reveals in its name. Witnessing how the attractive colour of these plants may modify the presentation of your indoor or outdoor garden will delight all DIY gardening enthusiasts.
Read here for further information on how to propagate and care for prayer plants.
Alocasia Silver Dragon is a beautiful plant that requires very little light. They are not picky about the soil, but they do need to be watered regularly. Reference: alocasia silver dragon light requirements.
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