Thanks, Evan! I'll do more. Whatever I put there disappears so fast. The whole area had 4-6" of leaves too, disappeared within the past couple months.
It's put itself at that level, which is puzzling to me... I had installed it quite a bit deeper.
Sandi, thanks! The bucket seeps slowly, over the course of a few hours. Filled in the morning, that might help your plant a LOT in the TX heat. I made the slit with a long-handle, short-jaw thing for pruning tree limbs. It made a thin slice that I occasionally need to "ream out" from buildup of sand with an old knife. I put the bucket there last year, in memory of drought the year before, when it didn't rain for about 8 weeks. I did use it quite a bit last year, and up until the past couple weeks. (EE loves all of this rain recently, but some other plants around here are freaking out.) Also, wonder how much sun your plant is getting? In my brief experience yet with being able to leave them in the ground, the ones in more shade make much bigger leaves. Where they have naturalized nearby in full sun along a drainage ditch, the leaves are rarely even 12". Evan's suggestion of more compost may be applicable to your plant as well.
I might be hesitant to go with a situation with enough standing water that one would need to worry about mosquitoes, especially if it's tap water with its' issues of chemicals and possibly bad PH. (Speaking of mosquitoes, Holy Moly, with all of the rain here lately, I can't even be on my front porch w/o getting a few bites per minute!)
