Elephant Ear

How large has anyone been able to get a leaf? I have one about 2 1/2 feet long and 2 feet wide. :-)
But it's in the garden, not a pot.
Thanks, Carol

My Elephant ears are the largest they have ever been this year due to all the rain we have received. I have some that are more than three feet across and four feet long. This picture was taken back in July, that is my cap on the leaf for comparison.

Wow! That's beautiful!!
I have to do something like that w mine. :-)

A lady on the other forum Beginners Landscape named Belle grows these to perfection, I'm almost sure she would be able to guide you on growing, propagation and any other questions you might need, she's lovely and just wait till you see her garden full of those plants all of different leaf shape and colour. quite beautiful.
Go over to that forum / thread and she's about 4th from the top last time I looked.
Very best wishes.
WeeNel.

Just took some pics yesterday. The shade plants do seem to love a cloudy, rainy summer, most of them. Even the Cannas have some really big leaves. Will try to remember to measure the biggest one I can find later. I even noticed some especially large leaves on sweet potato vine.

Where are you, Carol? I love Cannas too, but am spending a LOT of time fighting the leaf roller caterpillars. Grrrr!

purpleinopp,
Leaf rollers, they are awful this year. My cannas are looking so ragged! I bought some Spinosad, but it keeps raining making it hard to get any results from it. I have been gone so much too, I have not been able to spray on any type of schedule. I do hate it when the leaves look so bad.

Yeah, I spend a lot of time keeping the plants looking nice, (I hope, the fence is kind of blocking them, but I don't leave ugly leaves attached if I see them) finding and killing the caterpillars. If someone doesn't want to do that, I might suggest reconsidering having these plants. Hummingbirds love these blooms. Is spinosad a systemic? Not familiar with that, we don't own any garden chemicals except some fertilizer. I might encourage you to consider replacing plants with such problems in general, instead of trying to maintain a nice appearance with chemicals, battle them manually like I do, or learn to appreciate the blooms that do happen amidst "holy" leaves (although that's not really an option with Cannas, they eat the buds.) I don't mean to be all preachy or bossy, just that I think it's not really fair to attract birds, bees, butterflies, and other wildlife if one is going to then poison the environment created. I certainly understand the attitude of "I paid for it, so I'm not going to let pests eat it," but the chemicals aren't free, in terms of dollars or other costs. And some stuff is there to BE eaten, like passion vine for gulf fritillary butterfly caterpillars. Sorry, kind of rambling sideways here... I don't mean to be soap-boxy, just sharing my opinion, and trying to speak for wildlife that has no voice, from my limited and humble understanding of things.

Hey, I forgot to say earlier, these plants LOVE compost, 'finished' or not. That's what the box is, a mini-compost pile. Once the contents decompose, the tape should fall off of the box, and it will no longer be attractive to fruit flies (which are prevented from accessing the stuff inside by the box, smell contained. I've done this before, an action of the lazy, it's the back yard though it isn't the kind of neighborhood where "a box" sitting in a "flower bed" for a few weeks would bother anyone. Had gathered enough kitchen scraps to fill the box, closed the flaps and set it under the EE. ) I've given up on carting heavy organic matter to a pile to decompose, then go to retrieve it later, there's hardly anything left, and what I do get is more heavy carting. Putting it somewhere once is much better. Some funky stuff under plants for a few days sometimes, but life's too short to spend it on all of that composting work, and the bites and back ache one gets doing it. The last time I made a pile, I think termites ate it anyway, what good is that doing?

Well, Spinosad is made to kill insects, so I am sure if it was sprayed on bees it would not "bee" good for them.
But, it is much better than the stuff I used to spray, I am not totally non chemical yet, but I am slowly getting there. Not sure I will ever be totally non chemical, all natural, just plant and let the bugs eat away type of gardener.
But to each his own, I find labor intensive composting to be very good for the garden, the worms and the gardener. Actually my back gives me much more trouble when I am forced to just sit around than when I am hauling truck loads of compost materials. Of course after a year a huge pile is reduced down to a small pile, but that's ok. It is just such a beautiful small pile of stuff! Yes, my style of composting is very labor intensive, very hard work, especially in this high temp. high humidity environment, but it saves me gym fees, keeps my weight down, keeps my muscles strong and I find it very rewarding. Still, I know there will come a time when my style of composting will no longer be possible, but I am building up my soil so by that time the worms and compost will have given me great soil that should last for years.
Here is a link explaining a little about Spinosad, some people may not like it and some may find it a better alternative to what they are presently using.

http://www.2ndchance.info/fleas-spinosadGarden.pdf

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.

hope you don't mind me jumping in with this question, can you take cuttings? I notice lots of little off shoots on mine, especially when I re potted it.

Cana's are tuberous plants and as the tuber grows, it sends out new shoot's (baby plants) still attached to the parent so to get good results, you need to either lift the tubers at end of season or gently scrape away some soil from around the tubers, use a VERY sharp knife and cut the baby plant away but make sure it has some root on it, either pot it on or plant in the garden and next summer or the next it will give you those lovely leaves and flowers.

As for the Elephant ears I am sure they are the same, mine never last beyond a season unless kept in greenhouse and reality is, they are too big to keep more than one inside as I have a huge selection of plants taken inside for winter protection.

Best of luck. WeeNel.

Just took this pic of some Canna rhizomes I dug up for a swap and to mail some to a friend. The blue circles are where new foliage will appear. The red lines are where I would be confident about cutting them into smaller pieces.

Elephant ears make tiny bulbs, usually adjacent to the mama bulb, more like an onion. If you look closely at the base of the clump on the right in the 2nd pic below, you'll see a much thicker cluster of stems. That's the original bulb I put in that spot last spring. By now, it has produced several pups at its' edges. Those can be cut loose if necessary, or may snap off by gently pushing them down and away from the mama bulb. As long as the babies have some roots of their own, they can be separated from the mama whenever you want.