I'm certainly not expert, and YMMV, but this method worked for me last year and I'll do it again this year.

I had large (20 in diam)pots of C. esculenta 'Black Magic,'
C antiquorum 'Illustris,' Xanthosoma 'Lime Zinger,' Xanthosoma/Alocasia (?) 'Hilo Beauty' and a C. esculenta passalong from a neigbor.

Just before the first frost, I moved pots into my unheated, dark basement. I did not cut off the leaves, but waited until they dried up and drooped on their own. At that point I cut them off. I watered once, lightly, in late winter.

In early March, Black Magic started putting out new leaves on its own, so I moved it into the greenhouse and started watering. I moved the others into the greenhouse and started limited watering in late March.

They all survived and were beautiful this year.

Moving Day will be a bit trickier this year, since I've gone from five EEs to 12. My main concern has always been timing of the move - whether to move before or right after the first frost.

Gerry

Gerry,
Thanks for sharing your technique. You confirmed pretty much how I thought it should would work. I screwed up and cut back the stems though. I'm sure it will grow this spring just the same. :-)

I'm not sure if cutting the leaves off while they are still green and turgid will make any difference or not. It may depend on what species you are growing.

In a lot of plants with underground storage (like Narcissus, for example), sugars and other nutrients are withdrawn from the leaves as the plant goes dormant, conserving them for the next growing season. I don't know if that's true of elephant ears, though, some of which have minimal underground storage capacity.

Maybe someone else will tell us that. At any rate, I doubt it hurt your plants much to cut the green leaves.

Here's wishing us both luck!