A couple of weeks ago I spotted a flower on one of my elephant ears, presently there are two flowers on all three of my elephant ears.
I’ve been growing these elephant ears for two years. They started as strangly plants I picked up on clearance at the grocery store and turned into green monsters.
I used a hand truck to bring the pots inside to overwinter. Near the end of winter, I almost abandoned the project because the plants weren’t looking good. I’m glad I didn’t. It’s such a pleasure to watch elephant ears grow.
Each plant is producing two blooms and then another leaf. The blooms are covered with wrapping when they emerge. On one of the plants, I had to carefully remove the covering and on another, I broke the flower thinking the covering was a stuck leaf.
The flowers aren’t showy but I’m thrilled to have them. To me the blooms are a sign of a happy elephant ear!
Besides the flowers and huge leaves, there’s another interesting thing about elephant ears. They literally dribble water from their leaves. In the picture below you can see the streams of water running down the leaf.
I water my elephant ears liberally once or twice a day. The wetter the soil, and hotter the temperature, the happier elephant ears are.
I’m looking forward to showing you elephant ear seeds if I get any. Meanwhile, if you recognize the species please let me know what I’ve got. There was no tag on the plants when I bought them but I knew they had to be elephant ears.
Comments
4 responses to “Elephant Ear Flowers”
I have no experience with Elephant ears; congratulations with such success caring for these crazy plants.
I have a large, potted, indoor dwelling Philodendron plant that has been with me now for sixteen years. A few days after thoroughly watering her every couple of months, a large drop of water appears at the top of almost every heart-shaped leaf, then slowly slides down; sometimes dripping onto the floor. I’ve never experienced this with any other plant, and found it interesting to see some similar although much larger response with your Elephant Ear plants.
Elephant Ears are very reliable dripping water. When I had them inside in the winter and watered them less, you could time one and a half to two hours until you saw the drips appear. I’ve never experienced this before either but assume it’s a method of dealing with the saturated ground in the jungle. Sixteen years with a plant is impressive!
Could be Alocasia macrorrhizos, but I’m not sure. I’ve been fooled by many an elephant ear!
Thanks for taking a shot, Andrew. Alocasia macrorrhizos looks very close! I viewed some pictures on the internet and there are so many, and who knows if they are labeled right, it’s hard to tell. While searching I saw a plant called Alocasia x ‘Calidora’ that looks spot on but again I don’t know if the picture matched the description.