I wrap in newspaper and store in cardboard boxes in my entryway..I've heard of storing in the refrigerator but I've never done it..this is winter #4 storing in my entryway.. your rhizome looks fine..I wouldn't cut anything off..you should also post in the aroid forum..

Thank you. Should I be concerned that a refrigerator is too cold?

it seems unnecessary..these weren't stored in a refrigerator..I'm not an expert but a refrigerator sounds cold to me..

if you have multiples.. then try multiple options ... make note of what works best ...

i never stored these.. but what i have stored.. preferred to be stored dry .... i look in my veg drawer ... and i see things staying moist ... like that bag of carrots currently rotting in my fridge ... lol ... so i wonder if that is an important variable ...

ken

They don't need to be cold - these are tropical plants :-) They just need to be kept where they are not exposed to extreme cold or freezing. And where it is dry and dark.

I would not store under regular, inside-the-house winter temps but someplace that stays somewhat cooler. No more than around 60F.

ken makes a good point..my vegetable drawer is moist too..

my entryway is cool and dark compared to my other rooms..a tile floor..a very high ceiling..north facing door..we park in an attached garage and use a side door so it's not a problem to overwinter pots and boxes there..it's just not pretty Lol

Are you talking about alocasia or colocasia? Both are called elephant ears. The roots you show in the pictures don't look like the colocasia we used to grow in pots outdoors., so I'm wondering if they are the alocasia that we grow indoors as a houseplant...?

We gave up on growing the colocasia in pots outdoors a few years ago. I loved the plants - but they were a pain to wrestle out of the pots at the end of the season; wash the potting soil off the roots; store the plant - roots + leaves intact - initially in the garage and then when the garage got too cold, moved to a cool dark part of the basement to finish drying; remove the dead, dry foliage in late January, and pot up to start growing indoors so when it was warm enough in the spring to put them in the outdoor pots, they were already a reasonable size... It just became too much work!

The indoor alocasia does fine and has been growing in a pot in the living room for years with only occasionally re-potting.

These pictures are from 2008, 2009, and 2014:

Outdoor colocasia:

On the driveway in the front:

On the patio in the back:

Wrestled out of a pot and ready for washing/separating plants:

Alocasia in pot in living room (there is not enough light in winter for it to grow really well - the picture was taken in early Feb. 2014):

I didn't notice that the post didn't identify the EE!..my Jack's Giants colocasia rhizomes do resemble the one pictured..I keep my alocasias growing year round but for the colocasias I just cut the foliage back then bring the pots in..then put back out when it's warm again..

Well you all certainly are giving me an education. No I didn't pay attention to the difference between alocasia and colocasia and in fact I have BOTH and the labels are a jumble. They will all be taken out of the refrigerator and left in a cold room. When they leaf out, I will try to sort out the different types and next year leave the alocasia in pots as houseplants. No one has commented on the knobs or bulbets! Keep or remove?

BTW I do intend to keep the dahlias in the refrigerator as was recommended here a week or two ago. They are not in the vegetable bin, so I would think that desication would be more of a concern than rotting.

Re the ‘babies’ - if they fell off on their own, I’d collect them and add them to the pots when I was starting the bulbs in preparation for spring. That way, they’d have a chance to grow into bigger roots over time. If the ‘babies’ didn’t fall off on their own, I didn’t remove them because I was afraid to create a wound that might be vulnerable to infection...

Just happened to find this thread. I read with interest that woodyoak said that the colocasia became too much work to winterize. I am in the same zone and province as woodyoak. I have never washed the media off of a bulb to store for the winter. I cut off the roots near the bulb in order to remove it from the potting media. (I never use water to remove media from the bulb.) I then leave the bulb to dry for several days, or maybe even a week. I then put individual bulbs in shredded paper into a paper bag. All of them are stored in a cardboard box with a loose lid to keep them dark. They are stored in an area that is approximately 60 to 65 degrees F. None of them has ever rotten during storage.

The bulbs will have no roots on them and, if I am lucky, will have grown in size from the previous year.

The problem I have with colocasia is that I often find part of the bulb is rotted by late summer. A media problem? I still haven't figured that out.

newhostalady - you must plant your EEs in smaller pots/quantities than we did! Look at the picture I posted above of the mass of EEs wrestled out of one pot - look at the mass of roots in that picture! Simply to find the 'bulbs' (they are not true bulbs I think) we had to tear the root mass apart - and it was then easier to find all the bulbs (especially the small offsets....) by washing away the potting soil.

my pots are big..this was my reasoning..if the pots with undisturbed rhizomes aren't allowed to freeze it's as if they live in a warmer zone in the ground where they're dormant until warm weather returns..

This post has shamed me into taking a little better care of the elephant ears I dug. Last week I took a photo of the tub full I dug last fall.... they're still sitting in the (barely heated) garage just like they've been sitting since early November, and although the top tubers are drying the bottom ones are far too wet from all the slimy mud that was still stuck on the clumps.

They were in the ground and because we had a rainy summer, they multiplied way too much. I'll keep them completely dry and warm all winter and they should do well, but I have no idea if this is the best thing to do with them. It works for me though.

Kitsei- I think your bulbs look similar to mine, just a little better cared for! I don't remove anything unless it just falls off on its own. Over the winter the old leaf stems and dirt clumps slowly dry up and fall or can be pulled off but that's it.

Nicholsworth- if you ever want to get rid of a Jack's Giant offset let me know. I just looked it up and I think I need one... even though the ones I already have are too much work lol. Maybe I have a canna or something else you'd like?

I hope it's ok to sort of hijack a post, but does anyone have tips on overwintering other alocasias and colocasias? The ones that don't form as big tubers still give me trouble. I don't have a warm spot to keep them growing and they either rot while dormant or slowly dwindle and die if I try and keep them growing.

katob..you might have one lol..I swear the ones in your pic look just like my Jack's Giants..I'll keep you in mind..instead of a pile you might separate clumps and wrap in newspaper..I grow only in pots but when I grew in the ground I dug them up, didn't clean and wrapped in newspaper..I cut the leaves off leaving 4 to 6 inches of stem..left the roots..

I hit submit then realized I wasn't finished..I hate that I can't edit on Houzz..my alocasias are in pots inside and doing fine..from what I've read black colocasias are difficult to overwinter..I have some in pots in my kitchen..I've read they do better in soil than out..they're beautiful but finicky..you might look on the Aroids forum..

nicholsworth - our garage is unheated and gets cold enough that we worried about the EE freezing if we stored the undisturbed pots there for the winter. So we removed the bulbs in October, left the bulbs (with leaves still attached) in the garage until mid-November to dry and go dormant, then moved them to the basement for further drying in a cool, dark place until early January when they started showing signs of regrowth (like in katob’s picture). Then we potted them up in 12” pots to let them grow on the windowsill in the living room until it was warm enough in the spring to put them into the bigger pots outdoors (plants from multiple 12” pots went into each large outdoor pot). It all worked well and we loved the bog leaves - but it just became too much work....

woodyoak..I get it..we're retired which is a huge advantage..my kitchen and entry are full of plants..definitely not ideal..but in this climate it's a death sentence outside..I don't have a basement..our garage is big and very neat..but the truck, my SUV, tools, trash can etc fill it up..I worry too that it's too cold for tropicals so they're in the house..but when May comes I'm so happy that I saved them..