Hi Lee,
There are two types our walmart carries.

'esculenta' is the downward facing leaf, and 'odora' is the upward facing leaf.
The size of teh bulb is directly correlated with the size of the leaf so I hope you bought the largest bulb. Run a google on those two and see if you have a match.

I've found that they don't grow unless the soil is warm enough. So putting it out now in zone 5 has no advantage, and if it freezes it may die.

You can pot them and grow them inside. If you are prone to high winds at teh end of spring you might want to wait and put it out after the winds are calmer as those leaves will get all battered in high winds when you put it out and then it will look bad for a month or so afterwards.

The 'odora' is excellent as a houseplant and I have two in my living room-It does well near a window as long as it doesn't touch the frozen glass. It seems pest free.

Interestingly the 'esculenta' gets riddled with pests( Inside) and for this reason I preferred to store it dormant for the winter, and not pot it up in advance.

The love manure and be generous with the water in your summer garden. For now I'd go easy on the water tho.

karen

Thanks Karen! About how long after you plant it outside before it starts to get good sized? Also I have read other post about having rot problems because of the staple they use to attach the price. Do you use a fungicide on them at all? If so what?

Thanks,
Lee

Upward facing foliage versus downward facing foliage is the difference between alocasias and colocasias. Alocasias hold foliage upwards and colocasias downward. Odora is an alocasia and esculenta is a colocasia. Colocasias like wet feet and alocasias like to be a bit drier, especially during winter, or the tubers may rot.

You may be familiar with the term "upright elephant ear" which usually refers to Alocasia macrorhiza. It is a beautiful plant, too.

Esculenta will tolerate quite a bit of sun and will multiply a bit quicker. They do like well-draining soil. Karen, my C. esculenta does not have any pest problems. Sometimes the foliage does get a bit tattered looking, but that is usually wind damage rather than pest problems.

These plants like to be fed - a lot. Feed them frequently with a high phosphorous fertilizer.

Susan

Lee,
If you want to see esculenta in zone 5 go to webshots.com and look for 'cheerpeople' photo album titled 'purple and orange garden'. There is a huge one there with my son in the pic. It is in full sun. There are also pics of odora with the months labelled. They do their best in the fall when they'd had 30 days above 86 degrees. Do you realized we have only 30-40 days above 86 here? No wonder this tropical need to be in full sun here!!

Don't expect the plants to get as huge as down south when they winter outside. Think of it like a first year perennnial- it just doesn't get that big the first year- and every year in this zone is like a first year!

Esculenta was it's biggest its' FIRST summer- in subeiquent years it made more and more babies and was finally was too small to survive winter storage.

Due to fussiniess with winter storage, or small leaves-- I have tried and given up on all colocasia.
this includes'purple stem', 'illustris', 'black magic', and 'esculenta',
I also given up on 'macrorhiza', and an bad version of 'hilo beauty' which never got big leaves here.

The only ones I grow now are ALOCASIA 'odora' and 'portodora' (and if I hadn't paid so much for portodora I probably would have gotten rid of it by now)

I don't know on the staple- never been a problem I guess.

One little tip on propagating- don't seperate the babies to trade or gifts- until they are 30% the size of the parent plant. Two inch tall ones- just don't make it on their own.

Emial me directly if you have more ?'s as I won't check back
\good luck, Karen

They attach a staple to the tuber itself? How terrible! I would imagine that would indeed cause some damage. You could just cut that part out and treat it with some kind of fungal powder just in case. I've heard of people doing this.

Are these hardy in zone 5 even? Mine are grown in the ground, but I am in zone 7. People grow them all around here like crazy and they have a propensity to get quite large. There is one down the street from me, that is confined to about a 10 foot square area. The tubers are just literally packed into the area and they are HUGE every year. The leaves are about 3' long, and the stand is about 10' tall. A very nice looking grouping. I know people grow them indoors, but I've heard they don't like the drier conditions, and are prone to spider mites. Have you found this to be true, Karen?

Susan

No they are not hardy outside here. They have to be overwintered much like cannas, begonias, and most other good stuff. Makes it much more of a challenge!!

Lee

I bought one of those softball sized tubers too. Basically out of curiousity of what it will be. I have it potted up now and will let ya know when it sprouts. At under 3 bucks for that big a tuber I had to try it.

I couldn't resist either. I need another EE like a hole in the head! I am curious though to see how it differs from the big ones that are naturalized here. They don't make a big tuber like this. It's sitting outside waiting for me to plant it. Now if I can just find a spot in the garden....
Tally HO!

Just a note to say that the dang tuber never did grow. But the taro tubers I bought at the asian store are doing great. Even have one with an all black stem! And at about $1 a pound it was a whole lot cheaper! I even stuck one tuber right in the creek by my house and it is doing well.

Lee