Elephant ear is a tropical plant that can give some excitement and notion to your boring garden. The huge heart-shaped leaves of different unique colors offer a bold statement that does not need flowers to attract anyone. Elephant ear belongs to the family of Alocasia and the method of growing any alocasia is simple, cheap, and quick which makes them even more attractive to plant enthusiasts.
If you already have elephant ear plants in your garden or house, propagating them is a great way to grow more of these beautiful plants and give them a healthy surrounding to grow. But, how to propagate elephant ears? In this article, I have explained the process of propagating your elephant ear step by step. Follow the steps adequately to propagate the plant so that it can grow in a healthy way.
Key Takeaways
- There are 3 methods that you choose from for propagating your elephant ear.
- You can either propagate your elephant ear plant by offshoot separation, tubers division, or through the bulbs and corms of the plant.
- Disinfect your gardening tools to detach the plant from the soil.
- Separate the plant into sections to expose each of the offshoots, tubers, or corms and bulbs.
- Replant those in the soil or in a pot with good drainage when you have enough hot temperature and sunny weather outside and water them regularly.
- Maintain the proper care for giving your elephant ear a healthy environment to grow.
Consideration Before Replanting for Elephant Ear Propagation
If you live in a place with very cold winters, then you better not replant the tuber right away. Store that in a cool and dark place in a paper bag until the weather changes.
Temperature
To keep the tuber in the best condition, store it in a room with 10-16 or 50-60. However, if the temperature of the outdoors is more than 4 or 40 all year around, then you can plant the tuber outside right at the moment. But you can see a better result if the outside temperature is above 18 or 65.
Location
Select an area that gives enough sunlight at least for more than 6 hours a day for a smoother propagation process. It may take several weeks until you can see a growing elephant ear plant. If you are propagating multiple elephant ears at the same time, make sure to place them on the ground at least 3 feet apart from each other since the elephant ear plant can grow tall and wide.
Rotten tubers
If you want to do the tuber propagation, make sure the tuber you choose does not have a rotten area. Rotten tubers can indicate that your plant is suffering from a disease, and the new plant from the propagation cannot grow in a healthy way.
Also, do not do the separation if your elephant ear is not in good condition and has turned yellow. Yellow leaves mean that your plant is not in the best condition to survive through the propagation process.
Preparation for Propagation of Elephant Ear
Before going through the step-by-step propagation process, you need to make some preparations first for having a smooth propagation from any of the methods you choose.
Disinfect the gardening tools
Disinfecting the gardening tools is the very first step you should take for the propagation. The tools you need to propagate your elephant ear plants are a shovel (not required if your plant is in a pot) and pruning shears or pruning knives. Elephant ears can get infested by root maggots, aphids, and mealybugs very easily which can transfer many fungal or bacterial diseases to your plant.
To disinfect them, mix bleach and warm water in a bucket of a ratio of 1:9. Then place your tools in the bucket and leave them there for 30 minutes. Then clean them with clean water and you are good to go.
Remove the elephant ear plant from the soil
After disinfecting the tools, you have to remove the elephant ear plant from the soil. If your elephant ear plant is in the garden, you have to take the shovel and remove the plant from the ground. However, if the plant is in the pot, then you can easily take it off.
Check if the roots have grown out from the drainage hole of the pot. If you pull that plant straight away, it can potentially damage the roots of the plant. Untangle the roots carefully and shake the pot for easy removal of the plant.
Be a little bit careful before removing the elephant ear plant from the soil. After that, you will see the bulk of soil covering all the roots of the offshoots. Shake off the roots to remove the excess soil. You can also loosely run your fingers through the roots to remove the soil from the roots.
How to Propagate Elephant Ear?
If you love the elephant ear plant you have and want to propagate the plants, there are three easy methods that you can follow. The methods to propagate elephant ear (Alocasia) are:
- Offshoot separation
- Tubers division
- Bulbs or corms
Offshoot separation (Alocasia propagation)
This is the easiest of the three methods that I am going to explain. To do this procedure the steps you should follow are:
- Step 1: After removing the soil from the elephant ear propagation, you can see clearly where the offshoots are growing. Offshoots or sister plants of elephant ear plants are small plants that grow closely with the mother plant.
- Step 2: Then, separate the offshoots from the mother plant gently. You can do it with your hands, you require no tools for that.
- Step 3: Prepare a new pot with a good drainage system and new potting mix and plant that offshoot in that.
- Step 4: If you keep them indoors, water the offshoots once a week. And if you plant them outdoors, you may need to water them every day or once every two days depending on the heat of the sun.
This separation will leave your elephant ears more room to grow in a healthy way and have more nutrients than before.
Tubers division
Tuber division is kind of similar to the offshoot preparation. In this method, you need to divide the tubers in the place of offshoots. The steps for this propagation are:
- Step 1: After removing the soil from the parent plant, you can find many tubers growing from the roots.
- Step 2: You need to separate the tubers of the elephant ear plant by dividing the plant into sections.
- Step 3: After you have divided the plant, you will see that there is a main tuber coming from every one of the sections or plants. And from the main tubers, new smaller growth tubers are growing out of it.
- Step 4: The tubers have a fuller and rounder shape with a potato-like shape and texture. You must select the healthy tubers for this process.
- Step 5: Then, observe which growth tubers have sprouted or have root buds in them. The growth tubers with the sprouts have more chance to survive if that has been cut from the mother plant.
- Step 6: To cut the new tubers from the main tubers, take a sharp knife and cut them through the point where they are attached. You do not have to cut all of them, leave some if you want. The parent plant will grow larger and faster in this way.
- Step 7: After you have separated the tubers from the main parent plant, the next step is to plant the tubers separately. You need to prepare a soil mix of perlite and sphagnum moss.
- Step 8: You need to take a wide tub or pot for the planting and do a drainage hole in the pot.
- Step 9: Create a well in the soil so that the tuber can fit in properly. The pointy side of the tuber needs to be put in the upward direction. Then pack the tuber with the soil, don’t press hard.
- Step 10: Water them regularly to keep the soil moist to propagate the plant.
Note: To grow the plant faster, it is better if you can plant that indoors in a pot. If you want to plant the tubers in the ground outside, wait for the spring to come. For planting outside, make a hole in the ground with the shovel which is at least 5 inches deep. Place the tuber and fill the soil back.
Bulbs or corms (Water propagation)
To propagate the elephant ear plant, the corms or the bulbs need to have sprouts or buds in them. Tubers already come with buds and sprouts with them, which makes them easier to replant or store. But bulbs do not have anything like that, they just have a plain and kind of round shape. To propagate your elephant ear plant with bulbs and corms you need to wait a lot more than the others since it has to go through a water propagation. The step-by-step for bulbs and corms propagation are:
- Step 1: First of all, you need to remove the outer layer of the corms and wash off any dirt from them.
- Step 2: Then a small glass filled with water and place the corms inside the glass.
- Step 3: You should leave some room to breathe for the corms and keep the upper or the top part of the corms exposed. If the corms are entirely immersed in the water, then they will hardly grow any sprouts or roots.
- Step 5: After that, cover the glass with a lid or tie that up with a cloth to create a humid and dark environment which is a perfect surrounding for sprouting.
- Step 6: Remove the lid from the glass daily for about an hour which will give the corms airflow and prevent them from getting mold.
- Step 7: The base of the corms should be under the water all the time, so you need to check for the water level and refill the water when needed.
- Step 8: You should also change the water and clean the jar once in a while.
- Step 9: When the corms start to grow sprouts in them, you can plant them in the soil.
To plant the bulbs and the corms follow steps 7 to 9 of the propagation through the tubers division that I have explained above.
10 Tips to Maintain Good Health of Your Propagated Elephant Ear
- Do not forget to water the pot or the ground regularly and keep the soil moist. For the first several weeks, do not let the soil dry.
- You need to use a container that has a good drainage system so that even if you overwater the plants, they can survive.
- Try to feed them fertilizer that is filled with nitrogen once in a while.
- Do not keep them in complete shading, although they can survive in partial shading.
- If you live in very cold weather, keep your propagated elephant area indoors all year round.
- They can live indoors quite well if they give them enough sunlight to make food.
- But if the plant is in the full sun, the soil is going to dry out sooner. So, you need to water the plants more often so that it does not dry out.
- Cut off the leaves if that has turned brown or you can see any brown spots on them leaving them 2-3 inches above the ground. The leaves will grow back in the growing season.
- Make a straight cut with a sharp knife. You should be careful to not damage or rip the foliage.
- To keep your elephant ears in an upright position, you can support them by making bamboo poles surrounding them.
FAQs
If there is a lovely summer outside, and you have a lovelier full-grown elephant ear plant, then it is the perfect time to divide the plant and separate them. Do not separate if the plant is still immature to grow sprouted tubers, the plant is sick and yellow, or if there is a very cold temperature outside. It will make it hard for them to survive.
No, you cannot propagate the elephant ear plant with the leaves. You need to get the tubers from inside the ground and propagate them to get a more beautiful elephant ear.
Colocasia and Alocasia are the two most common types of elephant ear. Although both of them can be grown indoors and outdoors, the Colocasia are more commonly planted outdoors and the Alocasia usually stay planted indoors.
No! Even though you have an elephant ear as your houseplant, you need to ensure that the plant is getting enough sunlight. The plant needs to be in the sun for at least 6 hours daily. Put your elephant ear near a sunny window. It will give them a healthy environment to grow.
Final Thoughts
Elephant ears are great for having a beautiful statement piece in your home or garden. The unique colors and beautiful shapes of a full-grown elephant ear can make every place more attractive. The propagation process might seem a little intimidating at first but the procedures are a lot easier than it seems. Also, the method is a whole lot cheaper and faster to see results. You just need to be a little bit of work and patience; you can grow a completely new and beautiful elephant ear plant.