Overwatered elephant ears?

[JLM]

It has been REALLY wet over the past few weeks. So far for the month of August we have had 10-15 inches of rainfall. We got into a pattern where storms with rainfall rates of 2-4"/hour started training over the same spots. The spot where these elephant ears are located is known to flood, and there was at least 2 inches of standing water back there for up to a week (at the highest there was 3-4" of standing water). Luckily we have been dry with no rain over the past 3 days, and this area no longer has standing water. Just since it finally stopped raining, these plants have been dropping leaves with some of the newer leaves turning a bronze color in patches, and some leaves having patchy dead spots. I suspect overwatering, but maybe theres something else? The basjoo bananas in this same corner have seemed to slow their growth but there isnt any noticeable signs of distress. Ill have pics on here hopefully soon.

[metalfan]

What are they? Colocasias and Xanthosomas should not care about too much water as they will grow in a bog or pond. ALocasias might be unhappy

[JLM]

I'm not sure what kind they are, these were given to me by a neighbor in 2019, this is the biggest they have ever been.

[metalfan]

Xanthosomas

[Allen]

When the sun is less day by day the elephant ears die back some.  

[D Palm]

I think it could be getting near the end of season. You can cut off the unsightly ones and mow them over this time of year. 

Sometimes I’ll just mow the whole patch over this time of year and let it regrow. It’ll get half the size by the First frost in Nov/Dec.

[JLM]

Thats pretty interesting. Maybe its just because they are so much bigger this year. Last year they never did this, but they were much smaller. They stayed green all the way through the first freeze. Ill cut the not so great looking leaves off at some point this week, this will allow me to trim the bananas without getting spiders all over me lol

[metalfan]

I have Xanthosoma growing all over the place here. This is the time of year that they start putting out smaller leaves and kinda dying back. The ones that last the longest and in some cases last through the entire winter here are the ones that are growing in ponds or bogs as pond marginals, and the ones that have naturalized along the courses of streams here in town.

[Merlyn]

Hah, I've had the same plants at my place for ~20 years and never knew the name: Xanthosoma sagittifolium.  It's classified as an invasive species, and I can attest to that!  They are easy to manage at my place though, since they really only thrive with lots of water.  You can rip out the rhizomes pretty easily in the sandy soil, and if little bulbs eventually grow back you can hit them with Glyphosate to kill them.  I have three clusters at the moment.

[D Palm]

I can second the invasive, they grow in ditches were water collects. They do enjoy sitting in some water

[metalfan]

Yeah they are hard to get rid of once established. They have asked that we not plant them (those and Colocasia escuelenta, the green form) but there is always someone who does

[JLM]

So i went out to trim the bad leaves off the elephant ears today, and found something that i assume to be unopened flowers on one of them. We shall see what it becomes.