Thanks! So you are starting the elephant ears this early? Do they prefer a plastic pot or a peat pot? My bench mark for starting dahlias has always been late March/early April. Too soon, and they get too leggy. I tried making cuttings one year, and none of them made it. But then I am rotten at rooting any kind of cutting. I think it might be excess chlorine in my water. At my old house I did fine. At least that's my story. Though I get roots, they never transition to planting. Last year was my first for caladiums. I started them in flats indoors but they did absolutely nothing until it was warm outside. I'd like to have them earlier, so I am thinking about setting up a swing arm lamp on a timer to give them daytime warmth. They were so great I just have to have them again. I went to the store just to see if they had the ones I liked so much last year ; "White Christmas", in the event mine are dead. But they didn't have any of the ones I grew last year. I will have to bring mine up and see if they are all dried out. If they are lightweight they are goners? I checked the tuberous begonias in the same box; they are all firm and look fine.

First of all, according to various people, you may want to reconsider keeping your catfish and pond fish together. I posted a link below - or you can do a search yourself on the subject. In our pond in Upstate NY (similar in zone to you), I remove all my tropical plants in early October. We cut back our hardy water lilies which are planted directly in the pond and drop to the bottom the other hardy plants. Our pond is 3 feet deep and approx. 3,000 gallons so the fish overwinter in the pond. I don't know what you should do with a pond that small. We purchased a plastic 100 gallon tub at Country Max for our tropical plants, and I think that would work well for your fish if you decide to bring them indoors. You would have to add a pump or air stone for aeration and something for filtration. My husband altered the "plug" with a faucet and we can drain it pretty easily with a garden hose into our basement sewer come spring. Here is a link that might be useful: catfish in a pond

Running an experiment like Poochella suggests might be fun to try but you can lose tubers bringing them inside just as easy as outside if you don't take the correct precautions. I would just mulch them good 6"-8" of leaves or whatever you use to mulch. That should hold them for the winter and then if you want to divide them dig them up in early April and eyes will be showing and divide one eye with at least one tuber and replant when the soil is 70 degrees. Hold until that time in plastic grocery bags to keep the air from drying them out. I talked to a grower from Ohio a few years ago that kept his tubers in the ground all winter using a cover of leaves about 18" thick to keep them from freezing. Check out the DS of Georgia newsletters at our website for growing dahlias in the South. Here is a link that might be useful: Dahlia Society of Georgia

Jackie that's crazy that you had 8 straight days of rain! We both live in the Bay Area... but in my neck of the woods we only got about 2 good rainy days. Now there's no rain scheduled for at least the next 2 weeks. Sigh. Kelly I swear by mulch mulch mulch and more mulch for both winter and summer in my climate. But be careful with your sources. I'm not sure, but I think the grub problem I recently have been dealing with may be in part from the "free" mulch I got from tree trimmers in the area. Sometimes they trim healthy trees, but often they are cutting down unhealthy trees infested with things like beetles. You could probabaly feel safe using free mulch if you also used a systemic soil killer for grubs underneath (poisonous and not so great for invertebrates though) or predator nematodes (I bought mine through Natures Control and think they would have worked better if I applied them BEFORE the grubs hatched and took over). In the end, it may be cheaper to buy mulch instead of using free mulch and treating it. Just my opinion from my recent grub infestation though. I used free mulch before this year and never had any problems until now... so who knows!