Growing tropical tubers

I love those giant leaved tropical tuberous plants like alocasia and colocasia.

As I live in Leicester various kind of edible tuber are available in African and Asian shops and I've often bought them to see if they can be made to grow and what will be produced.

Sometimes this has worked, but one common problem I have found is that the tubers just rot off before any sprout or root appears - I've tried keeping them fairly warm and refrained from watering too much but they are far from reliable. I'm not sure either, if some tubers are not able to grow, rather like a dahlia tuber separated fron the plant with no growing eye at the top.

Eddoes, callaloo, dasheen, arvi, surin, cocoyam, taro, yautia, are some of the names of the tubers available.


Is there anyone who has any experience/expertise in growing this type of plant in the conditions we have in the British summer, particularly, how to start a tuber into growth? I'm not expecting to get a crop, just the decorative effect of the large, luscious leaves.

 

Hi Madahhlia, I have heard of people buying these tubers from the shops and planting them, I've not tried it myself as there are no shops around here that sell them.
I would guess a heated propagator set at a very high temperature would be the best way to get them going. Perhaps if they were just layed on the surface of the propagator sand and not buried, that would help keep the rot at bay. I did a similar thing with a sweet potato last year, I then potted it up once a shoot and roots had appeared.
Just as an after thought, it may be that some of the tubers get chilled, I assume they only store well at relativly high temperatures. If you buy them very early in the season I guess there is a good chance that they have been exposed to some quite low temperatures and may well be "dead".
Maybe a short dip in a fungicide before planting might help.

 

Hi I grow colocasia esculenta, the taro, I've just put it straight in the garden with the top level with the soil, it soon sprouts and gets loads of leaves. Then in October I just dig it up cut off the leaves and store in greenhouse. I also have the black magic one, that still in it's pot from when I brought it into greenhouse, now just waiting for it to sprout again.