Elephant ear flower in place.

  Elegant elephant ear flower, cut.

This elephant ear flower, cut to see how well it works, cut, looks very nice .  We’ll see how it looks tomorrow.  I cut back all the elephant ears so that I can let more light into my garden.

Did you know that elephant ears have flowers?  I just saw them for the first time today.  There are three flowers on the left from the front of the open one in the middle, a spent one to the right of that, and an emerging on to the left across the bottom of the left photo.  The open flower has a vertical spike going up the middle, protected by its pale yellow-green surround.  The right photo shows the same flowers from another direction.  The fact that I saw them for the first time today probably reflects the fact that they have not been disturbed for several years, and the fact that we have had enough rain this year.

Much of elephant ear reproduction is vegetative by way of  subsurface tubors.   You can see lots of little plantlets in the background that will become big next year.