How to Grow Colocasia Esculenta from Taro Bulbs | UK Exotic Tropical Garden Plants

Hello, this is Colocasia esculenta, the elephant's ear plant and you can see why it's called the elephant's ear plant because of its huge leaves and they get even bigger than that and it sits here in my UK exotic tropical plant border right next to the tetrapanics, another plant with enormous leaves. I've got my Musa Bajdu here, my hardy green banana that's towering above me and that's got massive leaves. I've also got another form of Colocasia too which is the pink china here. That's a hardy Colocasia that can stay in the ground all winter. Another name for this is taro and they do grow this as a food source in some countries in the world and I'd heard if you can find a taro ball you can plant it and grow it on to one of these and that got me thinking because I paid £20 for that plant and you can probably get taro bulbs a lot cheaper than that so I went out in search of a good quality international food importer and I dropped lucky because I happened to find Quality Superstore near Stoke-on-Trent and I will put their details in the description box below this video. Now when I was inside Quality Superstore I was looking at this quite curiously wondering what it was, wondering if it could be a taro and I was approached by a brilliant guy called Nads and I happened to mention to him that I was looking for some taro so that I could plant it and he was a mind of useful information and he furnished me with some tips on how to choose the right bulb and how to plant it and I'm going to share those tips in this video and there's one really important tip that you must follow if you can find some of this and you want to grow it and I will be sharing that in this video too. Now these do look familiar to me because I had a huge one of these Colocasia esculentas in a tub and I decided to split it and propagate it on and it had little pink shoots coming out of it so this one here has got little pink shoots coming out of it so I think we're already on to a winner there let's take these over to the table and talk about how to choose the right bulb and what to do with it when you get it home. Now there are never any guarantees with this it's always going to be an experiment but as I've already said that Colocasia plant cost me 20 quid and this little bowl of taro was under four pound so if you can get that to produce that I could turn four pounds into 80 pounds so it could be a very profitable experiment. All you can do with this is follow the advice you've been given and exercise some gardening common sense. So what we'll do first is we'll have a close look at one of these bulbs and I'll explain to you what Nance told me when he was looking at these and choosing them for me and he selected these four for me so I'll bring the camera in close and I'll show you what we're looking at. As you can see there's a pointy end and a flat end and it's this end that will be pointed upwards when you do plant it pointy end down. Now I don't know if you can see it but just there there's a little lump on the side of this one and that is like an eye that you get on the side of a potato. Try and choose some where there is evidence of these little lumps these little eyes because that is where the new plant will shoot out from so there's an eye there and there's a lovely eye on that one there can you see a lovely big eye sticking out there's the top there's the eye and it will be planted like this. I was also advised to look for these rings on the top so try and choose some with an eye and some rings on the top and that is your taro and hopefully when that gets planted you'll get some success. Now that one there is the one which I mentioned before and I will try and find some footage of the one I separated which had this little pink nodule on it which is where it was shooting out from so that's the pink bit there which leads me to suspect that we might already be on to a winner. There we go four lovely little taro bulbs a little bit of white on that there so I'll brush that off and we'll get these planted up next. And when I was in the shop talking to Nads and his two colleagues Bernard and Matthew I was also told to consider growing sweet potatoes and I bought these two sweet potatoes but Nads has already grown a sweet potato and he actually gave me the sweet potato plant that he's grown. I'm going to have a look at sweet potatoes in another video which when I've done it I'll link it at the end of this video. As far as the taro are concerned they do have to be planted in a certain way and there's one very important tip that you must follow which I'll share in a moment. So a pot and some standard potting compost. Put some in the bottom it's already moist and these will need dampness in that soil to start to propagate. Now I was told to plant them with that much soil over the top of that's about three and a half four inches so we'll leave some space in here put a bit more in and then we'll plant them into that. I'm going to put all four into one pot and then when they get some evidence of growth and they've all planted around the edge and when they've all started growing at some point in the spring I'll be able to divide them up a bit. So those bulbs are now going to be inserted pointy end down into this soil very gently I'm not doing any damage to these doing this I'm just very gently placing them onto this damp already damp compost one two three four in they go and you can see they're equidistant apart so they've all got an equal chance and they're pointing upwards with those rings clearly evident and that's the one with the pink on it there so let's now cover them up very gently with this already damp compost. Now I filled that almost to the top but I have left an inch or so at the top so that when I water it the water doesn't flow out over the top. I'm just going to gently tamp it down but I'm not going to firm it down too much because providing those bulbs are damp and dark and they've got some contact with that soil they should in theory grow on. There is one very important thing that you have to remember when you're doing this now at the moment as I speak to you it's the middle of November it's deceptive because these plants shouldn't really be here still we've just not had any frost yet but by now we should have had a frost and they should have all died back this has got to be kept in temperatures somewhere around 15 degrees centigrade it doesn't have to be kept in the light the bulbs are in the dark they're buried it doesn't matter about light at this stage it will matter about light when they start to emerge but at this moment in time they've got to be warm and damp if they are cold and damp they will rot just as that bulb will if it's left in the ground over winter or if I don't take some steps to protect it in the ground so there we go that's the big tip it's got to be kept warm now you could put it in a greenhouse but a greenhouse might well drop below 10 degrees so the tip I was giving is keep it in the house inside the house where your average temperature is going to be well above 10 and hopefully somewhere around 15 keep it moist but not waterlogged again we don't want to be too wet because we don't want it to rot there's enough energy and carbohydrate in that taro bulb for that plant to grow on and there's some moisture in the soil and hopefully in a month or so we'll start seeing some green shoots and I'm hoping that this will just get big enough to divide by spring and I'm about to create another new bigger exotic tropical border and these four plants can take pride of place in that border do subscribe and hit the notifications bell and I will keep you updated and informed on the progress I'll also put a link to this shop and the address in the description box below this video and Nads and Matthew and Bernard thanks again for your help and your advice and your tips and I'll see you soon with some more colocasia and sweet potato adventures bye for now