For the regular plain 'ol green no-name variety, I buy the bulbs. A local nursery carries *huge* bulbs every year, they run about $10 but go on sale for somewhere around $6, so I try to catch a sale if I can. Can also buy smaller bulbs less expensively, but I find one really large bulb gives a great display, and by the time I buy a few small bulbs to get the same display I might as well just buy one large one. The small ones do work just fine, though. For a whiskey barrel, I put two of the large bulbs in there, it fills out well and I get a great display.

I start the bulbs sometime in March, it's pretty easy. I just pot them up in some potting soil and put them near the window near the heat vent, and I water when necessary. The moisture and warmth is what gets them started, and by the time they sprout it's getting close to planting-out time, so then I take them outside as it starts to warm up, bring them back in at night (the whole hardening-off process, if you will). One thing, though: Do not cover the top of the bulb with soil, if you do you stand a good chance of rotting it (learned this hard way), leave a little bit of the top of the bulb uncovered.

For the speciality varieties, I buy the started plants, I've not seen them locally avail. as bulbs (some of them don't form large enough tubers, e.g. Illustris). Yes, they're expensive...sigh. But if you give them moist conditions and it's hot enough in the summer, those little starts will turn into nice plants over the summer. For those, though, I normally put three of the little starts in a 12-16" pot. They do take off where happy, but one of these little starts is not enough to fill in a 16" pot in the shorter growing season we have up here, unfortunately.

Sometimes the local nurseries to have larger pots of them during the season, and those work fine too. Obviously, the larger the plant you start with the fewer you can put in a pot and get a display, but like I lamented in another post, the varieties I want aren't always avail. locally (though Illustris is becoming popular around here).

I overwinter my bulbs in my root cellar and bring them up in the spring and it doesn't take long for them to grow once the weather warms up. I usually plant mine in pots and just store the pot in the root cellar. By the end of last summer mine was getting crowded, so this spring I'll have to remove them and re-pot. I've found that when doing re-potting I need to start them a couple of weeks earlier than if I'm leaving them undisturbed in the pot.If I'm re-potting I generally do so in early April and keep them in the house till the weather is warm enough. They grow very quickly once the warm weather arrives. Hope this helps.

Thanks guys! Both of you are in non-tropical zones so yes, is exactly what I am looking for. I have no idea of where i have been but i've just found these and I am absolutely fascinated by these, want to get at least two of them - they would be in pots

mxk3 - I want the big display so I am thinking that the huge bulbs are the way to go? Sounds like you pull the bulbs at the end of the summer - like for dahlias or cannas? Not to sound dumb but the top would be the rounder part?

hostaholic - do you cut them back or wait for them to die off? bringing in pots would be ideal but I am cramped for storage space so would want to remove and bring in.

Thanks so much!!

Yes, I pull the large ones, they form good-sized tubers. I let them air-dry for a couple days, cut off the top growth and shake off the dried soil, then throw in paper bags and put in the crawl space over winter, pot up sometime in March. Sometimes when I dig I get a lot of small tubers, so I don't bother, I just start fresh (like this year).

Some don't form large enough tubers to dig, like I mentioned, so I discard. I tried overwintering in the house, but it just didn't work well for me.

I want a greenhouse, darnit....

Mmmm, well, the bulbs I get are round, so both ends are rounded LOL! If you look closely, though, you'll figure out which end is up.

Those varieties that form a bulb/tuber are easy to winter over. Some, Like Black Magic and Illustris don't form tubers. Those I've wintered over as house plants. Currently Black Magic is looking pretty sickly. It remains to be seen whether it makes it till spring or I simply get sick of fussing with it and pitch it on the compost pile.

No tubers for Illustris? RATS! I somehow missed that in mxk3's first post. I googled it last night and it is really striking but I winter over some many other plants that I just don't have space for something this large. Of course I may end up changing my mind........

Black Magic and Illustris are nice but any recommendations for specific tuber varieties?

I'm not sure if it really forms a tuber or not, but I've had good luck over wintering Lime Zinger in the pot in my root cellar. I water it very lightly a couple of times during the winter. I posted a similar question over on the Aroid forum a couple of days ago. So far no responses. If I hear anything I'll post back over here. Good luck in your search and if you come up with any names please post them here. In reading old posts on the Aroid Forum there were a couple that mentioned they just let Black Magic go dormant for the winter. I may just try sticking it in my root cellar and see what happens. If I lose it, I guess I lose it. I'm getting tired of fighting with it.

Around local nurseries I have only found the plain green variety. They grow well, but I don't overwinter them because they are just too plain and too readily available. ALso, I have had trouble overwintering dahlia's so I may have just (unjustly?) probably lumped these into the same category as "easier to treat as annuals".

But just yesterday I got my Brent&Beckys summer bulb catalog and I think I am going to get a couple of interesting varieties for a change. illustris looks great. Prices were good. (haven't looked at shipping costs yet, but bulbs and tubers should be better than potted plants)

THen the Canna pictures caught my eye, then the dahlias... HELP!!!

I'll have to look at Brent&Beckys. When do you order? They must be considered tender, like dahlia bulbs?

Help? Help you with your selections or help talk you out of things? Must be that you want help choosing more plants, cause you know everyone on these forums is an enabler. Waiting for spring here.

If you have an Asian or Indian market near you, purchase Taro tubers. They are usually 1/2 to 1/4 the price of the bulbs from garden centers! These of course won't be specialty varieties but they are fun to grow and also edible.

For those of you that have grown Illustris, there is a vendor on ebay that is selling tubers - "Illustris Elephant Ear Bulb 9-11" -Colocasia antiquorum" for what I would think is a good price.

It sounds like the real thing........

Linda - "Illustris" doesn't form tubers.....obviously something's up with that.

Ah. - glad I didn't bid.

Thanks