Very difficult to tell what you are growing from the photo of the tubers Rick but it is likely Colocasia esculenta. This is the most commonly grown form of "elephant ear. Despite common misconceptions, you do not have a bulb or a corm, your plant is growing from a tuber since all the roots grow from the top. Read the link below and it will tell you the differences. All aroids grow from tubers, not corms or bulbs. Your plant could also be a Xanthosoma or one of several other genera. Look at this link and hopefully you can tell the difference. Tubers, bulbs and corms all all very different physically despite the fact they are all starch storage units and underground stems. http://www.exoticrainforest.com/Colocasia%20esculenta%20large%20pc.html There are hundreds of leaf forms to this species due to natural variation. Sounds like you did it right. Steve Here is a link that might be useful: bulbs, corms, tubers, stems, etc

WendyB! I am so sorry, I only thought there were two Wendy's at the swap. Wend-Y and Wend-I. I am so sorry. You are right, that is Wendy from Boston, I am such a goof. I just assumed that the B in WendyB was for Boston. Silly me, I do apologize. I do remember you now and I loved your dog. I also remember your dog, cutest little thing. You were trying to not be scared of people. I hoped it worked, really seemed like a nice dog (trust me, I have two and the are nasty little buggers. Yours was a complete angel. One of mine was abused as a pup and the other one is deaf. Together they are not nice at all). I will have to find my memory stick with the pictures from the swap. I thought my DH snapped a picture of your pup. Isn't that funny that there were three woman with the W name. Well hopefully we will see each other and everyone else in the spring. I am with you on the catalog ordering, I looked at the WS and I do not have anything but respect for everyone on that forum. I am not brave enough to try to start from seed, I am going to try with some sunflower seeds that I received from one of Annies' Giants. Wish me luck and hopefully I will be able to tell the both of you in the spring. Nice hearing from the both of you! Wendi

Marcia, I don't live/garden in zone 6 so I can't give you an answer that is as complete as I'd like it to be. In zone 7, my elephant ears overwinter in the ground and survive most, but not all, winters. The only time they don't survive is if the weather is really, really wet at the same time that the temperatures are really cold. So, here in southern OK, the elephant ears can, for example, handle really wet weather in Nov. and Dec. when we are still pretty warm, but really wet weather in the Jan.-Mar. (and sometimes April, if it is a cold April) time frame can sometimes kill them. A lot depends on the type of soil you have and how well it drains. If your soil has a high clay content and drains very slowly, and stays very wet and soggy, the elephant ear bulbs are at risk of rotting. If your soil has a high sandy or sandy loam content and drains well, the bulbs have a higher chance of survival. Mulching the bulbs well helps protect them from the cold, but also helps the soil retain moisture which would be a problem if your soil stays wet for a prolonged period of time and drains slowly. I don't know many people who have success overwintering the bulbs indoors in peat moss. It can be done, but you have to make sure they have enough moisture and humidity that they don't dry out too much, shrivel up and die....and yet, not so much moisture that they are too damp and rot. Some people overwinter them indoors in a pot of soil set in a cool dry location like an unheated closet and don't water them at all until the soil almost completely dries out. Even then, you would only water enough to keep the soil a little moist, but not wet. If you happen to have an unheated basement or a tornado shelter, either of those places might be a good place to overwinter tender bulbs and tubers either in pots of soil or in peat moss. I use lots of chopped-up leaves for mulch (and use bark mulch as well) and have never had disease issues because of it, but I am in a dry area that has only 30-34" of rain in a good year, and as little as 18-26" of rain in a bad year. I think that the likelihood of fungal and bacterial diseases overwintering in the leaves increases in areas with higher rainfall. But, if your leaves came from trees that didn't have foliar disease issues, I wouldn't worry about it. And, here's a tip about buying elephant ears the next time you need/want some. You can go into an Oriental grocery store or a higher end natural or organic grocery store (like Wild Oats, Central Market, Whole Foods, etc.) and go to the produce section and purchase tubers/bulbs there. They are sold under several names including taro and malanga. I bought a bag of them, sold under the name 'malanga' at a Whole Foods store in Arlington, Texas, several years ago for maybe $3.00 or $4.00 a pound. I got 20 or 30 small (each about the size of a small plum) tubers, planted them, and figured I'd have big plants in a few years. I had huge plants with huge leaves the very first year, which was a very pleasant surprise. So, there's no need to pay $5 each for the larger bulbs unless you just want to. Here in southern OK, the ones I have in sandier loam in raised beds survive all but the wettest winters. The ones in heavier clay may or may not survive a very wet winter, but we only get a winter like that once or twice a decade here. And, one very, very dry winter, I lost some of them to exceptional drought because it didn't rain and I didn't water that part of the yard. Hopefully someone who's actually grown these in zone 6 will respond and let you know if they overwinter theirs in the ground or indoors, because my experience is of limited benefit to you since I garden in an area a full zone warmer. Good luck, Dawn

I am in the Fort Worth Area - I have never fertilized mine - if I did, I'm afraid I might not be able to get to my front door anymore -lol Mine face north - but I have a friend in the area whos EE face west and do well also with the shade of a tree inbetween them and the evening sun. ~Angie~ paxetamor: most people use photobucket.com to post photos - I do. You create an account for free with them, upload your pictures to their site and then under each picture there are 3 links...use the 2nd option HTML TAG - jjust copy and paste it into the body of your post on here and when you hit preview - your picture will be there!!!