Hi Jane: If the Caladium tubers had their supplemental watering reduced gradually they may have gone into dormancy. However if the water was stopped in the middle of active growth they may be dead. Can your correspondent cut one of the tubers to see if the internal tissues are still moist? If not, there is a slight chance an overnight soak may help bring them back to life - but I doubt it. With respect to the elephant ears, they can stand a great deal of water. Sounds as if the heat gain in the car, even with the air conditioning on, was too great, and the leaves started to cook. I suggest moderate light and lots of water until new leaves start to reappear. Boyce Tankersley On Sun, Sep 8, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Jane McGary <janemcgary@earthlink.net>wrote: > The PBS website has received an inquiry from an indoor gardener in > Qatar who needs help with her Caladium collection. Here is an > excerpted copy of her e-mail. Please reply to this forum and I'll > forward the information to her. > Jane McGary > Membership COordinator, PBS > > Raahat in Qater writes: > I live in the Middle East in Qatar and in summer for about 5 months > the temperature gets to 45 degree in the daytime so these plants stay > indoorsI purchased in April - spring - few Caladiums and planted them > in pots indoors...they were doing perfectly fine and all of them had > vey large leaves..however we left mid June to Australia and I had. My > husband caring for the indoor plants.When we got back at the end of > August I found that the pots were sitting in the heat upstairs..I dug > up the bulbs with the scraps of withered leaves attached in the pots > and repotted them..but two weeks ago and nothing has happened. I > placed them near the window...my question is do I need to \'dry out\' > or do something to the bulbs before re potting them? Do I need to > cover the pots with cling wrap ...do they need to have drying soil? > How long before I can see any growth? Also the friend whom I have > given the shoots..is she able to split the plant somehow and give me > a couple of the stems or will that wreck her plant? Se has gone from > the two baby leaves i gave her to 5-7 large and small leaves. My next > question is to do with Elephant Ears with gorgeous stripes I bought > from a. Nursery 4 days ago. He advised me to water them well when I > got home as he had to repot into a smaller pot sell the plant to me > plus the plant sat in the back of the car (aircon) but for 2 hours > inthe heat. When I got home the plant was fine but I did water it > well but since then the dark green waxy leaves have become soft > droopy and purple. Yesterday - day 3- I repotted them into a new > larger ceramic pot and watered it t tiny tiny amount jsuT to settle > it into it new place...however I find that another two leaves have > become soft and crinkly at the edges...will it keep becoming more > sick or will it recover in a couple days now that I'm not going to > water ot anymore and it settles into tis new home? Should I cut of > the soft damaged leaves so the plant can focus on the healthy leaves > and grow more? If I shd cut of the leaves that have become purple and > soft should I cut them at the base or the top? Please do help. Many thanks > -- > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ >