Eddo (Elephants Ears, Colocasia ?)

Btw, the yams.

There was a very big one, that was dark brown.
And a smaller, more light brown/sandy colour.

Are these both difficult to grow?

 

Sirius , they are not hard to grow is just they are not impressive and don`t really worth all the trouble to overwinter the dark brown as when that will root down it will go deep down , have a go with the brown sandy one , maybe a chinese yam (hardy in UK) .

 

Sal,

Hmmmm, now I need an excuse to go back past there tomorrow...............

 

Is this one "air potatoes?"

 

Just went to my local asian shop , do you lot remember the point I was saying about he get different eddoes every week ? .
This week he had some Thai dasheen , look at the size compering to the bottle of wine.

along with the strange guanabana fruits , yams and so on

 

Sal,

that looks like some interesting things there.

 

Sal - they are huge. I Googled Thai dasheen, which confirmed that they are also called Eddoes. Then I found a company that would supply them by the container, where they said :-

 

PeterS I just googled as well and yes they are really heavy , I think this week he had lots of fresh fruit from Thailand , the tamarind are from Thailand , he also had thai and indian bananas (apparently with seed) , rambutan , pummelo , durian (but they cost around £40 each as they weight from 5 to 8 kg each), bread fruit as well and some strange eddos suspected from thailand as well but they are different.

 

Guy I`ve finally found the video I was looking for , as many of you already asked about overwinter look at this simple video.

 

Superb Sal - thank you. I find a video such as this is much more helpful than just reading about it.

The distinction between keeping it warm and just ticking over and letting it go dormant is pretty fine. But this method clearly works well, and is so much easier that trying to overwinter a full plant that requires light.

I suspect this system might work with Canna. My Canna that retained a bit of culm all survived the winter, but the others didn't.

 

I saw this clump at Hortus Botanicus (botanic gardens) when I was in Amsterdam a few weeks ago.

It was in the butterfly house and to give you an idea of conditions

Temp - I would say close to 30*C
Humidity - must have been close to 100%
Soil - was in very damp soil. That is water hyacinth growing at the base in a shallow pond.

Look how good the clump is looking under these conditions.

 

Wow that look like the new one I`m growing , more impressive it actually the fact of the water hyacinth in soil or there is water under there?

 

Thanks Sirius - nice picture. I think the problem with so many of these exotic things is how dependant they are on heat.

I have started off several Eddoes in a heated propagator, but after a while they get too big. Now I have a number inside the house that seem to be quite happy with our modest temperatures. I will try them outside later.

 

There was a very shallow puddle of water.

 

Yup, i think that they wont be as impressive in cooler temps with less humidity.