Just the spot!

Our newly planted elephants ears or Colocasia has survived it's first summer finding a relatively sheltered spot proved to be difficult. We often seem to have two winds battling over our garden.
I would like to use more of these plants which would be striking in a large container on the patios around our villa but those large leaves would soon be shredded by the wind.

This is our second attempt with what should be easily grown plants of this species. Last year the two large corms (from Costa Rica) quickly developed a fungal disease and as we had not kept the receipt we were unable to return them for a refund. This year those on display at the garden centre all looked a bit dodgy so I picked the best two and only one of those has survived.

Over on India Garden Green thumb has produced an excellent post on the culinary uses of leaves and corms of the Colocasia.

Do you have Elephant's Ears?

Costa Rica is the source of these Colocasia or Elephant's Ears tubers, reassuringly labelled as from a sustainable source. This will be my second attempt at growing them, last years tubers which were half the size and twice the price of these specimens simply rotted in their pots. Even amongst the consignment I selected these two bulbs from there was evidence of mould on some of the tubers.

Planted out of the wind the Elephant's Ears should provide an exotic keynote in this years display. I would like to have a tropical garden but gardening for us, both in cool and windy north eastern England and hot and even more windy north east Spain, means that large leaved plants can be something of a liability. So we will try to create a corner of the garden where our more exotic plants can flourish.