Sorry! Haven't been around much lately! Things aren't going all that well. I planted the Portora in a shady area with a lot of light, and it's doing well. Both the Jack's Giant and Black Magic have been doing horribly. Before they arrived, I decided to play it safe and pot the two up and leave them in part-shade for a few weeks. When I received JG and BM, one leaf (of a pair) of each was dying, which needn't be unusual, but neither one of them were acclimatizing to pots in part shade. More sun for a few days? No improvement. For soil, I went with a half and half blend of leafy-soil and compost manure, figuring it'd provide a chance to adapt to native soil conditions, as well as providing something rich and retentive to work off of. Watered daily, insured there was good drainage. Neither of the two potted plants did anything. New leaf starts forming, old leaf dies. I decided to plant them out into part or full sun with a full bag of manure in the hole to grow in, and they've been bouncing back and forth, without any real improvements, despite full daily water and a small bit of Milorganite to start. The New Guinea Gold I'd picked up from Lowes is doing wonderfully, It was already a good 2ft in height when I purchased it, and it's added an additional 3 leaves since. It's planted in a semi-shady area, and I'm only watering it maybe once a week. Still have a lot of work to do. Haven't mulched anything yet, still adapting sections of the garden, etc. but I'll try to provide some pics soon. Oh, my original purchase of the 3 plants was from Plant Delights. I have nothing against the company, but I'm definitely not impressed with what I'd paid and received for the price. Since then, I've purchased Mojitos, Black Ruffles, and Illustris from Wellspring Gardens for a fraction of the price, and they're mostly doing well in the soil in shade. It's a learning process, what can I say? lol

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.

I planted one in an 18 inch pot on 1 May 2006 and kept in my small greenhouse. The root mass had no sign of life when I planted. I planted it in the outside in the ground on 23 May 2006. When removing it from the pot there were numerous shoots coming from the eyes all around the root mass. Every effort was taken to remove from the starting pot with minimum disturbance of the root mass. The green leaves were just starting to protrude from the top about half an inch long. I must admit is is a slow starter, but the green shoots are growing a little even in the two days it has been in full sun. The planting hole is a mixture of compost and, clay and some wood chips to facilitate drainage. This is my first time growing this plant, and I am looking forward to see how large it gets. The link is to pictures of the root mass at planting time in the greenhouse. Here is a link that might be useful: The left picture is the leaf side plant upwards

I planted 2 Black Magic E. Ears 3 years ago. This first year they got about 6 feet tall, and had runners coming all out onto the path,that they were bordering. I mulched them with about 4 inches of Oak Leaves and Pine needles, which had been ground up very fine. Last year I was surprised to see 2 little babys coming up near foundation of house. I trasplanted them and they got about 5 feet tall. Last Winter we had a hard freeze leaving 4 inches of ice for about a week. I knew that the E.Ears wouldn't survive that. I purchased a new Black Magic this Spring. It just sat there until the weather started getting really warm. About the time it started growing, and putting out new leaves, last years batch started growing as well. So that is 3 years the original has survived Winter. They are about 4 feet tall now, and will be fertilized this week. I imagine that by Fall they will agin be 5 or 6 feet tall. They look really Fabulous paired with Little Blackie Sweet Potato Vine, and Pink Futurity Cannas( Dark foliage)