These are my notes on my first full year of dealing with my EE's, including last year's overwintering. Still I'm looking for additional overwintering tips, especially for the black EE's, of which I have quite a few. As you can see from the 'time lapse' picture series below, our Elephant Ears did pretty well this year. Once the weather here in Ohio heated up (mid 80's), the EE's added approximately 4 feet of growth during the month of August. After a frost last night (October 28), they now look awful and I'm digging them up and heading them to the basement. This will be the 2nd winter I'll be attempting to overwinter them. While I was successful with overwintering last year, I'm still hesitant that I will do something wrong. I'll describe what I did last year and any additional hints and tips would be much appreciated. The large plant pictured below was very simply, dug up and the clump put into a pot and placed in our basement which gets very little light. I watered them pretty regularly for a while but they declined until I got lazy (plus the mites set in) and quit watering and they completely dried out. Come spring they started putting up some shoots even though they were bone dry, presumably from all the energy stored in the corms. When it warmed further, the clump (and two others) was moved outside where it grew into the monster pictured. (it, and the other two, ended up about 7 feet tall with a 3 foot base and maintained about 60-70 leaves all year, with the largest leaves reaching about 5 feet long) I feel that just letting it dry out will be the way to go this year. However, I have concerns about the approximately 70 other smaller EE plants (especially the approx. 40 black plants) I have. They have been growing in pots in standing water rather than in the ground like my regular EE's. From the other posts, I'm afraid that my black EE's will suffer or die if they dry out. I do have to add that last year I had about 20 small black EE's (a couple varieties) that I carried into the basement which got the same treatment as the large green Colocasia's (watered for a while then let dry out). I did get a pretty decent number that died but still quite a few that sprung back up once they were taken outside once the weather warmed. I don't want to lose half because I have a larger number this year. Quite simply, should they be kept moist all winter even in the low-light conditions? I'll probably have more to add but this is already long so I leave it here for now. Thanks everyone.

Hi folks, I'm glad I found this thread. It has a lot of great info on it. I have a mask plant I got a few years ago. I keep it in a bright window behind a curtain. It's currently potted in soil less mix and stays moist. It's grown a LOT and sent out a flower this year. However, the tips of all the leaves are browning and curling. This just started in the last week. I don't want to repot for a few weeks until I can take it outside to do it and I plan on using some of the suggestions here for potting medium. But in the meantime, can anyone tell me what might be happening? It looks like burning, but hasn't been in the sun, and has been consistently moist. Also, what fertilizer should I use? Could I use the same one for my orchids? Oh yes, it has about 8 large stalks now and they look raggedy where the old leaves have come off, plus some new babies coming up. What would be the best way to repot this? Divide, larger pot, etc?

Don't put table salt in your soil. Plants use osmosis to pull the get water/nutrients from the soil. Plant roots generally take up moisture by a type of osmosis through membranes in root cells. Osmosis is a natural process where water, passing through a semi-permeable membrane, moves from a solution of low levels of dissolved salts to one with a higher salt level. This process allows water to move from a solution of relatively low concentration (the soil moisture) into a solution of relatively high concentration (in the plant root cells) in an attempt to establish equilibrium in the two solutions. This continues until the plant cells become full, or turgid. IF you place salt in the soil then the soil has the higher concentration. If the soil moisture is moderately saline, the plant has to work harder to absorb water from the soil. With lack of water, the plant soon begins to wilt, and growth is slowed, with reduced yields. In highly saline moisture concentraions, the process of osmosis can become reversed. Where the solution outside the plant roots is higher in salt concentration than that of the root cells, water will move from the roots into the surrounding solution. The plant loses moisture, and so suffers stress. This is why symptoms of high salt damage are similar to those from high moisture stress: leaf tip dieback margins yellowing, scorched and turning brown or black, followed by leaf fall of dead leaves Please bear in mind, I'm not speaking about Epson's salt which is magnesium sulfate not table salt (sodium chloride).

I have never seen one like it but I suspect it is a calathea because the markings similar to this one: http://www.westlandplantenshop.nl/website/index.php?TreeItem=661995&NewsItem=39095 Is the petiole where it connects to the leaf swollen? If so, that pulvinus is characteristic of the marantaceae family. Aroids don't have them or, at least, I never saw one with a pulvinus.