PlantFiles Pictures: Elephant Ear, Taro (Colocasia esculenta), 1 by lupinelover

lupinelover wrote:
Hi Sassy :) Welcome to Dave's Garden!

Yes, this is the correct name of the plant (the one in the box). I bought my original tubers in '98. The ones in the above photo had been a single tuber in a pot, but multiple growing points came from it, so I removed it and chopped it into pieces before putting them in this box. From one tuber I got 9 pieces, each with a growing eye. There are 5 of them in this box.

They grow new leaves in sequence, the older leaves yellowing as new ones are forming. The new ones are usually bigger and better than the previous ones, until it is starting to go dormant. I start mine in March, usually, and by October it generally starts going dormant -- any new leaves are smaller, but often not putting any out after September.

I lift and store my tubers indoors during the winter, then pot them in March before being set out in early May.

Mine have never bloomed, but that isn't unusual -- few of the ones available for horticulture bloom much. Blooms tend to be insignificant, and it is easier to cut tubers into pieces rather than to try to start from seed.

The photo below is the box with the Calocasia the previous year: check out the size of the leaves! (Those are my parents playing in them ;D

Hope this helps!