Tropicals & Tender Perennials: HARDY!!! COLOCASIAS !!! Top secret :>), 1 by bwilliams

bwilliams wrote:
Well I think a lot of you are now familiar with the Colocasia pink china. Which I have grown here in zone 6 for the past 7 years. I have also been testing Gigantea and the big dipper. Which have both shown to be very hardy here also if protected. So this year and last year I tried to cross a lot of Colocasias onto pink china or pink china on to other forms. I have to say it was very difficult and even when i did do it the seedlings had rotted on me and many died. Which was very depressing. This year I tried many crosses with big dipper, milky way, pink china, miranda and a few new forms. I am still hoping for Gigantea to flower. These crosses have seem to take on most it has taken me a few years to know exactly when to pollinate and how to treat the flowers.
Here is some info you may find interesting these were forms I named. Which I see people use the names to these all the time now.

Pink china
big dipper
milky way
miranda
bloody mary
candy cane


Now for the very interesting news. Black magic is one I love to work with dark plants are extremely interesting. Although I hate to count chickens before they hatch. I will let you know the parents to this one shown in the picture. This is a seedling off of pink china that was crossed with black magic. Now I have a few forms two which are black and one that is a gray color and three others that look more like pink china. If I am lucky and I like to think I am. This will be the first hardy black elephant ear and should grow well here in the ground if mulched a bit. Should be nice growing under the hardy basjoo bananas I figure. This is the first full season this seedling has had. It has also NOT been tested yet for hardiness. It will probably get tested next season. After that patient and then TC and hopefully to you guys to test it out. So thought it does not look like much more than Black magic it has potential to be an amazing Colocasia for us northern folk. The picture is a bit off on color but I am sure you can get the picture. THANKS