Good grief, Bihai! What beautiful specimens! I love the photos. Can't wait til mine look like that. Most are kind of dormant right now. The guy at the nursery, who is an aroid nut, too, suggested that I bring them home and repot them in potting soil, because they were planted in what I believe what topsoil, with burlap around the roots, because they had been kept in a pond over the summer last year. They were removed from the pond for winter care, were very dried out, but the tubers were in good shape. However, when I repotted them, some of the tubers did break off. I just stuck them back in the potting soil. Right now, I have them in my kitchen covered with some plastic to keep the humidity around them up. Except for Mickey Mouse. There were a few leaves on him, so I put him up under the flourescent light. Has a pretty good sized tuber on him. I potted in Schultz potting soil. Very well draining mix. Think that will be okay until time to take them outside? Susan

I have zero knowledge of bonsai but I do study aroids. I'd suggest you talk to someone that knows how to create a bonsai but my guess would be you are dealing with two very different groups of plants. What I know for certain is Alocasia Poly is only a natural form of Alocasia Amazonica. I traded mail with my friends Denis and Bill Rotolante at Silver Krome Gardens just this morning who found the form now sold as Alocasia Poly (correctly with one L, not two) to confirm this information. The only difference is "Poly" is a smaller variation. The "poly" came from the term polyploid which indicates a plant has double the normal chromosomes. However, in the case of Alocasia Poly DNA tests proved otherwise. The plant is just a natural variation of a plant that was originally hybridized by Salvadore Mauro in Miami, FL in the 1950's at a nursery named the Amazon Nursery. Thus the name "amazonica". There are no natural Alocasia species in the Americas since all 100 or so species come from SE Asia and/or the islands in the near Pacific region. If you're interested the entire story it is told at the link below but I caution the story is evolving each and every day so I'm now forced to update the page daily. It is likely a story will be published by another author on the International Aroid Society website in the next few months about this "sordid affair". Here is a link that might be useful: Alocasia Amazonica

@love_the_yard I was at the Lowes on Atlantic Blvd the other day and there were huge discount racks of all kinds of stuff. I got ground orchids 1 gallon for 3.00 -they are the orange flowered ones. No name on them except 'Ground Orchids' lol. I am pretty sure they are the tropical types and will have to overwinter in the gh in our zone grrr. I saw Belotti passiflora, white and pink mandevillea, and a bunch of annuals and other perennials on the discount racks. I think they were getting ready to put some 3 gal roses on there too because they were in the process of pulling them from the display and moving them to the discount area. I also saw some 3 gallon Sting Ray alocasias that were good size (I already had some of those). I might go back this weekend and see what's left on the discount racks though lol. We also have the 'wild' green alocasias on our property. Last summer one had a leaf as big as the hood of my car! I am thinking of making a huge fountain base or birdbath with a few leaves (concrete casting). They are soooo big! I don't like how they invade my flower beds but if there are few off by themselves somewhere they don't bother me. These things do reseed like crazy as well as make runners. The huge one by my car last year made about 50 seedlings. Hopefully most of them froze cuz I only see about 10 over there now. I keep my Mickey Mouse Taro in pots. It likes to go out the holes in the bottom of the pots and start new plants all over the place lol. It is definitely the cutest EE !! I saw some at the Ace Hardware in Mandarin that were obviously MM taro but they had them labeled as "Variegated Sting Ray" and a big "WOW!!" marked on the sign in front of them. Reminds me of the ebay seller ads. That Ace is normally a great place to find unusual things (in their gh) so I was kinda surprised at the mislabeling. I got a 3 gallon black Bat Plant last year. It was great and flowered nicely then one of the dumb roosters came and ate up the blooms grr. It is still doing good and overwintered in the gh where I only light the heater when it goes under 32F. So I think they are a little hardier than zone 10b/11. I have another baby black one and a baby white bat that overwintered in my somewhat cool gh as well. ~SJN

My dream is to create a Bonsai using this famous "Angel Oak Tree". I love the branching structure on this tree but it is the opposite of Bonsai and is more like a Giant. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://stylefrizz.com/img/angel-oak-tree-l.jpg&imgrefurl=http://stylefrizz.com/200810/easy-like-the-angel-oak-tree/&usg=__l5As7K3ZeVcJcU8dLB7w1MlSPyM=&h=564&w=850&sz=168&hl=en&start=0amp;zoom=1&tbnid=JycuaYpQImageM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=151&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dangel%2Boak%2Btree%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1920%26bih%3D895%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=106&vpy=107&dur=735&hovh=183&hovw=276&tx=152&ty=84&ei=k86eTI-XI42-sQPZoJ3WAQ&oei=k86eTI-XI42-sQPZoJ3WAQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=33&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0