Alocasia Regal Shield: Care, Facts, and What to Actually Expect.

Once upon a time in a land probably not very far away, I had someone else buy me a plant. It was dark and made these big old leaves that looked super cool and tropical. LOVED IT.

We like big leaves and we cannot lie...

I still have that Alocasia Regal Shield, although in the intervening years a few things have changed. First of all, I learned what the name of it was, which was an act of Congress in and of itself. There are SO very many different varieties of Alocasia - not to mention Colocasia - that almost every AI on the planet - including the ones on those fancy paid apps - gets confused. Once you’ve heard four different possibilities that each AI is absolutely sure is the answer, you get a little wary of trusting them.

But anyway, I learned what it was. And then I slowly but surely started making an actual effort to figure out what it needed not just to live - which was happening pretty well - but to thrive - which maybe wasn’t.

This big girl started out in my living room, which, in our ranch, means it was on one side of a really big open space that’s only separated by a wood-burning stove insert. Yep, that. I had no clue. I didn’t know jack about indoor plants, having been a farm girl for most of my life.

After a while I started moving it around because the number of plants had exceeded the amount of space. I don’t like my living space to feel cluttered, and while I genuinely adore the jungle look, I have definitely determined plants can look cluttered the same as that one extra armchair that came with the set but doesn’t fit your setup. 

So, I started buying plant FURNITURE. And that was actually a pretty good move, because they included grow lights and were handy for putting multiple plants in once space without the cluttered look. But…they don’t do very much for larger specimens.

So, I started buying big girl grow lights to accommodate my big girl Alocasia Regal Shield.

And she absolutely has flourished. I mean, these LEAVES. Like, they’re getting close to the size of my torso, and we all know by now that I don’t have the tiniest of torsos.

So, let’s talk about Alocasia Regal Shield and go through some fun facts, care tips, and generally useful information about them that I have found over the years.

OMG Becky, Look at Her LEAVES

It’s a cross, which means someone manually took pollen from the boy parts of one plant (it’s called the anther) and put said pollen in the girl parts of another plant (which is dubbed the pistil). That process makes hybrid seeds, and over generations, those seeds are separated into the ones that grow well and the ones that don’t. The process continues until you have what’s known as a stable variety.

Alocasia Regal Shield is a cross between Alocasia odora (large elephant ears) and Alocasia reginula (the fancy black velvet ones). The goal was to get the size and upright qualities of the odora and pair them with the darker, velvety leaves of the reginula. While I can’t say that the full velvet came through, the leaves on the Regal Shield are definitely dark and leathery (called coriaceous), can get quite large, and are pretty resilient (to wit: me managing to keep one alive having no idea what I was doing).

In the right conditions, the Regal Shield can get up to 9’ tall, which is enormous for any plant but especially large for a dark Alocasia. The leaves are “peltate”, which is a very fancy botanical term that basically just means they attach to the petiole at the center instead of at the edge. That’s a good thing, too, once the leaves get larger than a dinner plate. Being peltate allows them to move around without snapping the stem and also helps support their surface area.

Guttation, Edema, and Musical Pots, Oh My!

Another thing I’ve especially noticed with this particular plant is that it guttates pretty seriously. Most plants guttate, but this one will leave streaks down your drywall like a whole community of slugs played follow the leader down it while you were sleeping. Excessive guttation. 

The snail trail in ACTION!

If you haven’t read the blog on guttation, first of all, you should, and secondly, it’s a way for the plant to expel what basically amounts to plant food at night when photosynthesis is not taking place. You can read more about it in the very long article here if you want more information.

As a Regal Shield plant mom, you sort of have to pay attention to the guttation, too, because with those big, broad leaves there is the very real chance for edema to form. (Edema is basically what happens when water pressure builds up inside the cells in the leaves faster than the plant can use said pressure.) Looks icky (rotten-looking), gets brittle, can form a hole or even spread if you don’t ensure that the plant is moving around and that the leaves can at some point get moisture off of that particular spot. I’ve taken to just doing a quick wipe of the leaf edges to help keep the edema down, and that’s working out pretty well.

The Regal Shield is hardy. Not just “I have no clue what I’m doing and it didn’t die” hardy. Like it literally could live outside in most of the United States hardy. They’re typically houseplants for most folks (like MEEEE), but it’s nifty to know that I could take it outside, plant it in the yard, and let it do its thing, especially considering I am currently in a bit of a conundrum as to what to do with it.

Mine is sitting in a 1gal planter’s pot at the moment, and it is…getting a little unhappy about it. How can I tell? She’s thirsty pretty regularly, and while she is pushing out new leaves at a good clip, she’s also losing the old ones. That tells me she doesn’t have the nutrients required to accommodate both the older leaves on the bottom AND the newer leaves up top. So, we'll have to address that issue at some point in the very near future, or just resign ourselves to losing some really big, really beautiful leaves.

The Ick: Spider Mites, Yellowing, and Drama

Leaves can droop for other reasons too - inconsistent watering can cause it, which is really just plant drama but it happens. If they get too dry they can droop, if they sit too wet they can droop. Or, if they’re pushing a new leaf…you guessed it, the older leaves can droop. 

Sometimes, people new to Alocasias in general have trouble with yellowing leaves. The number one typical cause of that is overwatering. If you’ve got your plant in a well-draining substrate and you’re not watering on a schedule because that’s what you just do, then it’s more likely not getting enough light. I have one cucullata sitting on the bottom shelf of what used to be a behind-the-couch table, and let me tell you, when she’s not getting enough light, she lets me know posthaste. Yellowing can also be caused by a nutrient deficiency - not enough food for all leaves? Let the old ones die!

Alocasia Regal Shield - along with literally every other Alocasia on the planet - are spider mite MAGNETS. Those big, juicy leaves are everything a spider mite colony could ever want in a food source, and they’re not super tough leaves either, meaning those little buggers can really get in there. While they’re annoying all the time, they’re even more annoying when the humidity drops - in our house that’s the wintertime - because they thrive in low humidity environments. 

You’ll know you have them because you’ll see little dots where the stem of the leaf (the petiole) meets the leaf itself, all around the base of the leaf. They can also form these teeny tiny webs - like spider webs but much more fine - on the undersides of the leaves. Sometimes you can tell just by the tint of the leaves themselves; they’ll look duller when something is eating at them, unsurprisingly. 

Wiping down the leaves can seriously help with multiple pieces of plant health, Alocasia or no. For the spider mites, you’ll dislodge the pests while you’re wiping. For edema, less sitting water = less icky spots on the leaves. But just in general, your plant needs to “breathe” through the tiny stoma pores on the leaves, so keeping them free of dust and debris is a must.

Watering: How Often and How to Tell

How often do I have to water it? Right now for me with this particular plant, it’s about a weekly event, depending on humidity levels in the house. Prior to her getting all too big for her britches, it was more of a bi-weekly affair. She’s in the spare room greenhouse, which means the humidity is kept pretty consistently in the mid-60s, but it does dip here and there when I leave the door open for too long or forget to refill the humidifier. If you're looking for a real list of everything you need to know for watering, try this post.

For me, the quickest, easiest fix for this issue is probably going to be to up-pot her into a 2gal, give her some room to grow. Except I don’t exactly have one of those lying around the house right now. I’ve run into a situation where I have so many big plants that just keep getting bigger, it’s a lot like playing musical pots. I think in this case I may have to break down and purchase a 2gal semi-decorative pot. 

What the heck is a semi-decorative pot? Oh, yeah. That’s just a plastic pot that perhaps wasn’t intended to BE a nursery pot, but that COULD BE with a drill and determination. Usually, I get ones in neutral colors (because I like the plants to be the eye-catching part), then I flip them over, drill enough holes to mostly hold in the substrate but also to allow for proper drainage, then plant away. The only catch to a semi-decorative DIY pot is that you’ll need to make sure you have a catch basin underneath. You can grab a cheap plastic one when you pick up the pot at just about any place that sells plant stuff.

To recap. Bought a plant → plant grew despite me → learned to care for said plant → plant grew bigger → must buy more pots. It’s really the circle of houseplant life, isn’t it?