I am in west Marietta -- it gets pretty cold here most winters. Both my neighbor and I have elephant ears and callas and cannas. (Dahlias too.) I have never been efficient enough to get them out of the ground and they come back every year. This may have something to do with where they are sited -- neighbors are next to her foundation -- mine are by a stone wall. Maybe this provides a little shelter? If you are willing to risk losing them, give it a try. Leave them in the ground and then mulch over with chopped up leaves or something. I'm guessing they will come back. Ooops - wait -- are your elephant ears the fancy, super-tropical kind? If you know the variety, maybe look them up...... I know there are some that are enormous and can really only handle warm weather. Someone here sent a link to a site that sells them -- in Florida, I think. Search elephant ears on this site and see what you find. Good luck!

"Elephant ear" is usually used for Alocasia, Colocasia and Xanthosoma, and occasionally for some other closely related genera. The name comes from the ones with the big leaves--and some of them get enormous--although all three genera have smaller members. Caladiums are closely related with similarly shaped leaves that are are much more colorful but generally much smaller. Most caladiums will have leaves about a foot long or less, and usually don't grow more than a foot or two high. One big difference is that caladiums are true tropicals and cannot tolerate any cold temperatures. They start to go dormant as soon as temperatures start to drop in late summer. Alocasia, Colocasia, and Xanthosoma seem to be more subtropical and will tolerate some cold temperatures, although they will stop growing. In my garden, most elephant ears look good right up until a frost kills them.

I am posting a follow-up to my own message. I found a thread on the Southern Gardening Forum that is about 75 messages long. This has lots of info about splitting ee's, and also about anything else you want to know about ee's.

To achieve full growth potential the Colocasia needs to be planted in the ground, not in a pot. These are aquatic plants and needs lots of water. Last summer I experimented by taking a large pot, and lining it with a black garbage back before filling it up with soil. I wanted zero drainage to simulate muck. The few Colocasia plants were thriving in this scenario, the problem was that the pot still needed to be watered daily even with no drainage and complete saturation. The transpiration rate is enormous due to the high surface area of the leaves. The bottom-line is these are very thirsty plants and it is difficult to keep them adequately watered for optimum growth. But luckily they tolerate less than ideal conditions, they just won't get as big or grow as quickly. x