I bought taro roots from the Oriental stores month of December, I just put them in a tray no water and leave them on the refridgerator then i check back the end of January you can see the green slips coming out from the tubers, so plant each tuber in those lil containers with soil potmixing ( i used some small coconut fiber cups 4" high) from HomeDepot then l line them up in a tinfoil pan with water 1 " by the window for 2 wks, check back you won't believe they 6" inches tall but I wait till mother's day then I transfered them to outside garden, i fertilized them with all purpose then I flooded them with water everyother day. They grow about 3' tall, my problem that I should cut out the old leaves liked it mention above so they grow taller. We cook the taro leaves with cornbeef as our best dish for dinner. What I am asking for I have tubers ready to plant outside but afraid might they get by the frost, is there any idea when to start plant them, last year I plant them very late.

Sounds like you need to feed them. They really do well with a regular feeding of organic nutrients and the cheapest, easiest way is cow manure. You can pick up a 40lb bag at Wallymart or Home Depot and it will last you a while. Every year, early in the season when mine start coming up I try to work a bag into the soil where they are planted. Then whenever I water them, the nitrogen in the manure is released. Since mine are so big, that only works for the first part of the summer before they deplete that and I either add more to the soil or give them manure tea. It's easy to make and they really thrive. Take a 5 gallon bucket fill it with water. Take a good size shovel full of manure and put it in a old pillowcase. Let it steep a few hours (just like making tea) and remove the pillow case. Get an old pitcher and dip it out. Pour it at the base of the plants. The blacker the water, the better and I have even forgot and let it steep overnight. You can add more water to whatever you have left over in the pillowcase and use it again. You should see growth improve within days. :)

Alocasias are strange. I have a silver-leaf alocasia that I knew was dead, because it rotted. I took the dead bits out, put in some new soil, and stuck some coleus cuttings in the pot, now it's coming back, I supposed from some tiny bulblets or something. It's done this before. I also used to have an Alocasia Amazonica that died back and went dormant for 3 years, then suddenly decided to grow again. I was going to throw it out, but it still had that growth tip sticking up out of the soil. The year it came back, it also died for no reason I could see -- it was like the break out of dormancy was its last dying breath. I didn't see any bulblets, so I reused the soil, and about 2 years later, one sprang up in that pot.

It's my first try overwintering coleus...I will make some clippings from the mother plant and keep the mother on a windowsill in a cool room and in my guestroom. I had to take the metal stairs in before it gets too wet and so I thought I use the room for plants as well. It's going to be one of my adventures :-) normally my succulents and palms overwinter in that room and so I will see if it is ok for others too. I will also put the smaller EEs on that stairs, I read they can be overwintered that way. The big Pink China I will overwinter as a tuber. Next year this will be my sleeping room and the sleeping room will become my plant room. It has a southward faced window and is much bigger than the guestroom. It's wasted space. I only sleep there and so I can put my bed into the guestroom as well :-) The crazy plant lady is making plans again,lol... I still love my hosta but there are so many interesting plants out there...and after that terrible hot summer I had to find something for the sunny spots and so I bought some succulents. I really like those little aeonium trees and I think succulents will be my next favourite hobby together with EEs. EEs and hosta seem to have the same need for partial shade and a lot of water and so I will mix them up more next year and in my mind it already forms a nice picture, hope it will work out in reality. I'm never at a point where I can say my garden is complete...how boring that would be...I don't want to sit outside and only look at what is growing there...I need to have my hands in the dirt, contact with Mother Earth is very important for me...