Could you possibly get pictures of these brown areas and holes and the green spider-like bugs that are on them? I'm not quite sure what you mean by "dewy". Also, the scientific name (latin name) of the plant would help me in my search for a solution.

Dorothy, The southern part of zone 6 would be 6B. I am not sure elephant ears would survive in a pot above the ground. It would depend on just how cold it gets, and you know how wildly variable Oklahoma weather can be. Having said that, though, our local weather forecasters here in southern Oklahoma tell us we are in a La Nina weather pattern, which tends to give us a warmer and drier than average winter. (For us here in extreme southern Oklahoma, this seems to be true so far, as we are still having daytime highs in the upper seventies to mid-eighties, and haven't had a killing freeze yet. No rain either.) One unfortunate aspect of a La Nina weather pattern as experienced here in Oklahoma, though, is that there are often some very cold though brief blasts of Artic Cold, so 'warmer and drier than average' doesn't mean there won't be some periods of extreme cold. In general, when I have a plant in a pot, I consider the plant in that pot to be one-half to one full zone colder than if in the ground. So, if you are in zone 6B, then your elephant ears in an above-ground container would be overwintering in at least zone 6A and possibly zone 5B. The reason is that the ground is a great insulator, and you lose much of that insulation value if you overwinter in a large above-ground container. If you have no choice about leaving the elephant ears in the container and leaving it outside, you could try to add extra insulation by placing lots of hay or bags of leaves around the container. You could pile a lot of mulch on top of the container. The elephant ears might make it and they might not. Be sure to water them occasionally, keeping them moist but not sopping wet, beacause plants that are very dry suffer freeze damage more easily. Caladium bulbs are tropical and need to be dug and overwintered in a non-freezing location. I have had caladiums survive only one year in the ground in the 9 years I've been in southern Oklahoma and I am in zone 7B. Even when I lived in Fort Worth, which is zone 8, caladiums seldom survived the winter in the ground. Hope this info helps. Dawn

They need consistent warmth (60-70F soil temp) for about 4-5 weeks to sprout, so either it isn't warm enough, or you overwatered since they do not need water to sprout; wet soil can easily lead to rot in Colocasia tubers. Carefully dig around and take a peek.

My EEs do well all summer, but had a new experience happen with the black taro that is in a pot right beside it. The BT was failing, no matter what I did it would not thrive, tho the ones in the garden pond and in the ground 15 feet away were doing well. I finally decided to just pull the poor dead plants from the pot and let the rest of the plants take over. To my surprise the roots were totally gone! I have wave petunias, allysum and another foliage plant in that planter and they are all fine, only the taro was struggling. Someone had mentioned earwigs eating roots, think it was Paul James on one of his shows. I have seen a lot of earwigs in the crevices of that plant, do you think they are the culprit? Why only that plant?