have grown both in containers in sun and they are gorgeous. They LOVE to be fed and watered so I always use pots to make that easier. They are my favorite patio plant and I use them as "thrillers" in almost all of my pots. The Red Eyed Ghecko are lime green and a gorgeous accent plant. Brian's Botanicals is a great place to get special Colocasia although I've found that a local nursery will get them for me for about the same price and 10X the size.

A local nursery? Wow. I can't imagine asking one of mine to order it for me. I've just never seen them as being that accommodating. As a bulb or a plant? The ones I've been looking at ordering online are sold as small potted plants.

I assumed they didn't get very big in pots. Black Magic never did much in a pot (2 leaves at a time), about a 14" pot, so I figured I would have to plant any colocasias in the ground going forward. If they get nice and full in a pot I will re-think this. How big of a pot did you use?

Looking at pictures online, it looked like Blue Eared Gecko is shiny and Black Ruffles is velvety. Was that your experience? How tall would you say each got? And you have Red Eyed Gecko as well? I love lime green: lime green and purple are my accent colors on my patio! I have not seen that one, but will look for it.

For the first time last year I planted 2 of the common elephant ear (C. Esculenta) in the ground and one in a pot with other annuals. The 2 in the ground took off and were lush and full. The one in the pot only produced one leaf at a time. All were started in advance in the house to get them woken up and rooting.

Which has made me hesitate to order these more exotic ones, as that pretty much makes them an annual if I have to plant them in the ground. I DID dig up my C. Esculentas last fall and store them, which was a lot of work to dig and separate. But most did not make it through the winter in my cool dark basement closet.

Before I go and order some of the Gecko series, would they be OK in the top of my biofilter (3-4" depth). I have a Thai Giant in the back in a 5 gal pail...gets huge and would put these in front/around, but don't want to spend that kind of $ if they are not suited to that boggy an environment.

Claire, with pots that size, do you bring them in for the winter? The pot I tried growing my Black Magic in was ~ 14". I thought that that was big at the time, but maybe not...? I don't know if it was my culture or the limitations of that variety that kept it from achieving more leaves / vigor.

Will, I've grown colocasia in my biofilter and they loved it but I've never tried alocasia tho I think they'd do ok too. The only reason I stopped doing that is the plant roots were so invasive I couldn't clean out my filter (lava rocks). linnea56, I lift out the roots in the fall and overwinter them in a closet in my garage. Besides heavy feeding we use soil that we make from our compost-black gold!

So, even though they are in pots you dig them up? I could see pots that size would be hard to handle.

Come to think of it, I have no place I could store such large pots. No room in the garage. I have stored plastic pots upside down under a spruce tree in the back yard, but that's taking a chance that they'll crack over winter. I have therefore not done it with good pots.

we just put the roots in a tub. sprinkle with a little water and shove them in the dark somewhere that won't freeze. truthfully though, there have been many years I just treated them as an annual. For 10 and a gorgeous display for 6 months it's well worth it.