Colocasia Esculenta & Watering Needs

I have a about an in-ground Colocasia and its watering needs.

I planted a Colocasia Esculenta bulb in the ground about a 1 1/2 months ago. It gets full sun from about 9:30am to 1:30pm. After that it is in bright shade or filtered shade until late evening and then receives full sun again around 6pm for about an hour. Currently, it has 5 leaves and 2 of them are about 1 1/2 feet long and about a foot wide. The stalks are about 2 feet tall. Here in SC, summers are very hot, humid and dry. I water it in the morning and let it soak into the soil and repeat this process 2 or 3 times. Then I do the same again around 6pm. I know Esculenta needs a lot of water, but I was wondering if anyone can give me an idea of how much is a lot? LOL Can you over-water one that is planted in the ground? I don't want to deprive the roots of oxygen.

Thanks!

My Colocasia esculentas handle a variety of water situations... I have a container of them that sit in water at the edge of the pond....and a clump planted at the edge of the driveway by the drainage ditch....both of those are full sun sites and the plants remain compact in size....the other clump is in a low lying area of the yard that gets morning sun and late afternoon sun much like yours....I soak it once a week unless it rains....these plants are full size, 6 to 8 ft tall with huge leaves...the trick seems to be the right light with the right soil....I would work some compost and a fair bit of peat moss into the soil and mulch well....soak the area and then check it daily to see how much moisture the soil holds...it needs to be damp, not drippy wet all the time....that way it will give you an idea of how often you need to water. You can partially bury a couple 2 liter soda bottles, top side into the soil a few inches down, and a hole cut into the bottom to catch rain or add water. That way the plant roots have a ready source all the time.

Moon, regarding your Esculenta in the low lying area...when you soak it...exactly how much water are you giving it? Or what method do you use to provide water to it?

Also, do you fertilize your Colocasia? If so...what fertilizer do you use and how often?
Thanks!

Hi Carol,

I lay the hose in the middle of the clump turn the spigot on low and just let the water run for about 5 minutes( weekly unless we have gotten at least 1 inch of rain during the week)...then check the area out....if there is a bit of standing water, then I move the hose....otherwise i let it run a little longer....when I planted the Colocasia, we dug out an area about 3ft by 3ft about 18 inches deep....that gave it a bit of a bowl for it's roots to grow in.Beneath the hole was mucky clay and what we call "gumbo" mud. I mixed a fair amount of peat moss and compost in with the native soil.

If we are having a dry spell, which we have had plenty of in recent years, I have a couple 5 gallon plastic buckets with 5 or 6 small holes in the bottom that I use for supplemental water....just fill them up in place and let the water trickle out on to the ground around the plants.

As for fertilizer....a balanced 10-10-10 slow release in early spring and then again in mid to late summer.

I have several of these around the yard. Used to be in more sun, much more dry, but after separating and moving to more shady, moist spots, the leaves are much bigger. Already this year, the biggest one is making leaves bigger than last year - about 3 feet long. That one gets pampered because it's handy to water, and nobody but us can see it in the back yard so I put a 5-gallon bucket next to it with a slim slit in the bottom. I fill up the bucket almost every day that it doesn't rain, and put a lot of wet kitchen scraps at the base of it when I can, like watermelon or other melon rinds, banana peels, corn husks, stuff that will melt before it can host a generation of fruit flies. I also put regular, finished compost there when I have it, a few inches of leaves at the end of the year.

Here's what it looked like on the 4th. Earlier that day I had dug up some Oxalis bulbs to send away for trade, so the lump of foliage to the left is the latest addition to the mini-compost pile here. No need to fill up the box with all of that foliage, so I put it here.

Looks great, purple! Good idea about using melon rinds etc at the base. I usually throw that stuff by the Canna or at the base of my Autumn ferns.

This is the 1st year for me in growing the regular Colocasia Esculenta. So, I planted 1 in the ground and 1 in a very large tub/planter with an attached saucer. For a month, I had the planter receiving 2 hours of morning sun, then bright shade until about 3:30 where it received hot mid-day sun until about 6:30. The leaves weren't as big as the one I planted in the ground mentioned in my first post. So, about a week ago, I moved the one in the planter to the same area as the one in the ground so it doesn't receive that hot mid-day sun anymore; It receives full sun from 9:30-1:30, then shade, and then full sun for about an hour or so in the evening around 6pm. It really likes this spot because it already put out 2 new leaves and they are much bigger than before.

How deep do you two plant your bulbs? The online nursery I bought them from said to plant them 10" deep. So I did. Then after a week, I read online on other websites to plant them between 3" and 5". So, I lifted the one in the ground and planted it at 4". Maybe that made a difference in leaf size?

I mixed Black Kow compost into the soil of both of mine when I planted them and then added a shovel full of it on top of the soil a bout a week ago.

Mine has a bit of a bowl to it as well. I've done the hose thing a few times myself so far this year. If the lack of rain continues through the summer, then I will be doing it a whole lot more LOL I've had to water all my Colocasia varieties twice a day the last two weeks because we haven't had rain, it's been really sunny with temps in the mid to high 80s, and at times really windy. The wind, plus the sun, and lack of rain was really drying out the leaves. Unfortunately, I didn't have any spots available in the yard to shelter them from wind.

Hi Carol...do you use mulch around your plants in the ground? For the plants in pots, I would put a saucer under the pot to hold a little water and maybe use some Spanish moss or sphagnum moss in the containers to help prevent rapid evaporation from sun and wind. That sounds like an awful lot more water than they need...I only water mine in the ground once a week if it doesn't rain. Too much water can cause root rot/fungal infections, and one of the symptoms of overwatering is wilting...same as it is for underwatering. I rely on the finger test....if there is moisture 3 inches down, the plant is fine.

Thanks, SD! I know I planted this bulb below the soil, but it has adjusted itself. Now that I've mentioned it, I think you can see it's sticking out about 2". I add OM here all of the time, and only water in the slit-bucket, so it should be getting deeper, everything else in the area is. This is what it must want to do, but might want to do it when it feels like it, after being submerged and maturing first... IDK? I've had this bulb for about 15 years, but it was in a pot in OH until 2007, and moved a few times until settling here last spring. The pups that are new this year (one on this bulb, a couple others on other plants in other places,) are much deeper than their mama bulbs. Now that I've found a permanent spot for this one, I look forward to seeing what it does over the next few years.

Also forgot to mention that when I refresh our dog's water bucket, I dump the dirty, spitty water in the EE bucket too, and there's a lot of algae that flecks off of the sides. Who knows what organic goodness is going on with that.

The composition/texture of your soil would have a lot of bearing on how often you need to water, and the proximity of large trees, for the one in the ground. The soil here is very sandy and large trees nearby quickly zap all surface moisture when it hasn't rained for weeks. If I miss 2 days filling the bucket, EE will wilt when it's that dry. If you have more clay and no large trees nearby, following my plan could be too much moisture. The only place I've see these things growing untended around here is in a drainage ditch or near a swampy area.

Purple, my yard is sand and when I dig to a depth of about 12 to 15 inches, I find red clay in some areas of the yard. The area I planted the Colocasia Esculenta in had been prepped pretty good. I dug out a hole 3 feet in diameter and down about 2 feet. Never saw any clay, but the soil was still pretty sandy. I mixed about 3/4 of a bag of Black Kow compost & 1/2 bag of Organic garden soil in with the native soil I had removed. Now that the leaves are pretty big, they shade their own feet, so I probably won't have to water as often.

I have a question about Esculenta...For a week or so, I thought some of it's roots were showing above ground level, so I'd cover them back up with more compost. Today, they were uncovered again and I was wondering if they were little runners instead of roots. I noticed the same thing happening to my potted Esculenta and potted Gigantea.

The 1st picture is of one in the potted Esculenta. The one in the ground has a few of them peeking out of the soil, too. The 2nd pic is of the one in the potted Gigantea. I though these were clumping and didn't expect any runners like I get with Black Beauty & Illustris.

Are these runners? Above ground stolons? LOL

They are runners and can be above or below the soil surface. The first link shows pictures.

http://www.environmentalweedsactionnetwork.org.au/taro.html



Popagation from the runner type of Colocasia such as Burgundy Stem, Fontanesii, and Illustris

This type of Colocasia does grow some pups which should be treated as above. However, the runners do exactly that. They send out subterranean or surface runners which can travel as much as 6 feet from the plant. They then throw up a young plant. These should be left to grow 3 or 4 leaves and once rooted can be cut from the end of the runner and potted up as above. Again if there is not much root reduce the number of leaves to one until it gets going again.

Once the runner has had the terminal plant removed nothing happens for that season in the UK. However, I have found that if the runner is left on the plant over the Autumn and Winter it loses it fleshiness and becomes woody. It then has the ability to produce new plants at every leaf scale node. As the plants produce 3 to 6 runners and the runners may have 3 or more nodes. This is almost as good as tissue culture! As an experiment I have left all the runners on the plants overwinter. I just wrapped them around the inside of the pot to keep it tidy.

This winter 2006/7, as it has been more like spring, The Burgundy Stem even in the outside covered courtyard have continued to grow. The runners have been removed and cut into node sections. See above. There is one potential bud per cutting. These are laid on moist compost surface and allowed to root. The cutting in the picture right rooted in temperatures ranging from 10 to 18C. Picture taken at 3 weeks .

The sprouted cuttings need to be kept growing during the spring so avoid temperatures below 7 degrees C. Plant up in well drained compost until planted out after all danger of frost has passed.

http://www.hardytropicals.co.uk/page.php?id=51

I also have Black Beauty in a pot and noticed 2 runners peeking above the rim. Should I just leave them alone?


Ok now in regards to the "running" type...In the fall, I dug up a clump of Colocasia Black Beauty from one of my flower beds and moved it elsewhere. However, this spring little pups are popping up in that same spot. Some are growing underneath my Autumn Ferns. Is it ok to just let them grow even if they are growing up through the ferns? The Black Beauty I moved, sent a runner about 3 feet away and is growing a pup pretty close to an Astilbe. Should I remove it or let it grow on? In other words, will they hurt other plants if they grow near or through them? LOL

They probably won't do much to the ferns, but I would try to keep them from overrunning your other plants

The runners in the pots will eventually root in the pots and you can cut the babies off with a bit of the runner and pot them up.