Beginner Gardening: Elephant Ear , 1 by purpleinopp

purpleinopp wrote:
I apologize for failing to express my point if "just plant and let the bugs eat away" was the impression I left. I thought my pic of the Cannas showed that they can be kept nice-looking manually, but if you disagree, I respect that.

Also was just trying to reassure that making a pile isn't necessary for composting, especially for elephant ear. Whatever OM one has that can be placed at the base is appreciated, especially something very moist like melon rinds.. I can't pick up anything over about 10 pounds due to a back injury, so that kind of work is not an option for me anymore, but I still manage to find something to do with all of our OM except thorny stuff and wood that is too covered with lichen to make a tasty fire for the grill. I did the giant pile thing for years, and was in no way discounting the benefits thereof, except the last pile that ended up being termite dinner. We made a pile almost 6 ft. tall, 7 ft across, 4-5 feet front to back, with stuff from my Mom's yard and DH's Mom's yard too, and got one little cart load of stuff from that in the spring. I have to think that in this instance, it would have been much easier and possibly beneficial to just spread that stuff around like mulch. It was tough to decide which small area of which bed should get the fruits of so much labor. Gardening in general is a great exercise plan though, no doubt. For a few hours a day, most days, I'm up doing stuff to/for the plants. Earlier I dug up some Cannas and EE's (middle 2 pics that I posted, about half of each,) to trade. That spot was grass until about a year ago but already, just from smothering the grass and keeping a layer of about 6" of OM on top, the soil under there was dark, easy to dig, moist but not clumping, nice.

...but speaking of being eaten, here's what my garden's all about, butterflies, or more specifically in this pic, hosting their caterpillars. Gulf fritillary on passion vine. The little frog digs the Cannas too.