Ligularia hessei has huge leaves. Ligularia dentata (e.g. 'Desdemona', 'Othello') and other species such as stenocephala have large leaves. All are shade plants, and hardy through at least zone 3.

Thanks AB great suggestions! Now maby you know a good sorce for some of these great sounding plants I looked them up in my Gardening Encyclopedia and they sound like justlike what I"m looking for. Thanks Glenda

Well, here they're usually available from the better garden centers, as they are good, reliable and fairly popular shade plants. I don't get US mail order catalogues, so I couldn't suggest any suppliers that you could try. I'm sure lots of other readers could though...
Lori

other big leaved plants are, petasites japonicus, rheum palmatum atrosanguineum, acanthus

Maybe gunnera is a stretch for zone 5, but you can certainly grow rodgersia - there are some large-leaved varieties - can't list them off-hand. Check out the rheums too (ornamental rhubarb).

I just bought a small pack of seeds and plan to try it as an annual and see what happens.

If you would like a couple of my seeds I am sure I could spare a couple - assuming i get them - bought online last week should have them soon - i hope

I plan to grow like a castor bean - but really don't know what to expect

If you like send me a sase and I would be happy to send you a couple from my pack to try - send me an email and i will give you my address etc.

I have 2 gunnera in my garden and have given 'pups' to friends that live in zone 5 and they do quite well but we mulch it heavily in the fall. I believe it is a zone 7 not 5 but that may be the difference between Cdn and US zones. The one I have in sun is almost twice the size of the one in my shade garden and they started out the same size. Likes a ton of water though. They certainly make a statement in the garden!

Jessy, Thanks for the information I'm glad to talk to some one who has the plant. Did you get your's as a plant or did you start It from seed and if so do you have any advice on getting good germination? A very genorus GREENGUY shared some seeds with me but we have no Information on how to get them started .I have a nice sunny moist place to put mine. How old is your plant, are they fast growing or do they need a few years to mature?
Thanks Glenda

When I asked my wife if it came with any directions she said "no" I should have looked.

Cultivation notes

Sow in the autumn in a sandy mix in a cold frame or in a shady position in a greenhouse in the spring. Germinates in 2-8 weeks at 60 deg. Division is possible in the spring.

Requires a damp humus rich soil in a sunny position or semi-shade, sheltered from strong winds. The roots are tender, surviving to about 15 deg. and requiring some protection in colder climates. This can be achieved by piling plants onw dying leaves around the crown.

Glenda - I bought my gunneras in 1 gal pots which is considered very small. Normally they are sold in 5 gal pots in our area here but I bought mine at a garage sale. The first year they didn't do much but the second year they took off especially the one in the sun (in fact its the one I took pups off the third year) The leaves get huge in the second and third years and lots of pups develop. This year I'm going to save some seeds instead of letting them go to waste. As to wintering over I have heard of gardeners that cut them back in the fall ,pot them up and store in a frost-free place rather than risk losing them. I mulch mine very heavily. Good luck with your seeds.

Jesse

of the ones i have planted so far - no luck - so far.
how are you making out?

i think about moving my gunnera, when would you do that now or in fall ? i'm not sure about your zones but at vienna it can get to -4F during winter. i killed 2 gunneras that were in (big) pots. what survived in pots was rodgersia, another great leave! (rodgersia astilboides and tabularia i think). in german rodgersias are called someting like "showy leaves". one has huge round leaves, the other has leaves like a huge hand.
the third gunnera did not survive my living room.
the last is doing fine outside, last year better than this year, we had hard frost the middle of april.
at the local botanical garden they have two huge gunneras, i guess they are 20 years old. they cut the leaves in fall, put a wooden cask around it and fill that up with dried leaves. it could be that they put another cask around the whole thing. and they place a wooden lid on it which is opened by gunnera herself (impressive, i saw that once)
i think they only cut the leaves to get the cask over it. if somebody is interested i can go there and get the complete dtailed getting gunneras to sleep story!

I got my Ligularia at my local Lowes. Look for a garden center that carries 'specialty' pond plants since they're so fond of moisture. You could try planting your gunnera VERY close to the foundation of your house - near the rooms you keep warmest. I did this with some cannas which were supposed to be hardy only to the warmer edge of zone 7 and they've come back for me the past two seasons. Mulch heavily but don't let the crown stay super soggy - I made a steep slope with about 8 inches of mulch since they get the biggest hit from the wind during the winter. Castor beans are super easy to grow from seed and come in a variety of leaf colorations too.

gourdmusicin, i also have a gunnera manicota, but this is the first year, so it hasn't gone thru a winter yet. i bought mine as a plant, but i have read that gunnera seed must be planted fresh, not dried and kept as do most other plants. but i think you should look up petasites japonicus. there isnt a good picture in the hortiplex, but if you look it up elsewhere you might like it. mine went from a 3 inch pot to a 10 foot patch in three years, standing more than 5 foot tall with leaves 36 inches across. it is hardy so you wouldn't have to dig it every year. i like the tropical look without all the digging! susgarden

The hollyhocks (Alcea) we grew from seed last hear have leaves as big as a dinner plate. The pale yellow flowers don't do much for me, but the leaves are "WOW!" The are biennial, though, so to get a perennial crop going, you would want to sow seeds 2 yrs. in a row. From there, they should reseed themselves so that some plants are in bloom each year, while the others will bloom the next year.

My mother lost her Gunnera in her frost-pockety z7 garden. I was absolutely blown away by the ornamental rhubarbs of many kinds and colors I saw in Romania--can't grow 'em here, it's too warm. I thought regular rhubarb was a great ornamental when I lived in Nebraska, but those ornamental rheums, WOW!! They're supposed to have a climate about like Ohio, and I saw them in the northern part of the country mostly.

going to look up petasites japonica

Hi Greenguy, just make sure you don't plant Petasites in a perennial bed. It's very invasive! A separate bed all to it self will make the other plants happy ;)

Sharon

Hey guys,
First off can't you all just say where you are instead of the zone this zone that and stop using the big names of plants that nobody knows. OK, anyway I live in Seattle and have 2 Gunnera plants in my back yard they are under trees and get shade and sun all day, I will say that the leaves will stretch as far as they have to to get to the sun, sometimes the stems are 5 feet long and the leaves are huge. they are in heavy wet sandy soil and do very well. I did have to learn how to get them through winter but I know now to cover them with straw and put something over them to keep them dry. if the heads stay wet they will rot.

Heythere Steve! Welcome! Your concerns are valid, let me tell you what I know.

"First off can't you all just say where you are instead of the zone this zone that..." The reason people are using zone numbers is so they can compare plants by climate across vast distances. The zones refer to low temperatures and allow people to estimate the potential of different plants being able to live through the winter in different places. You can find your zone here. By including your zone in your profile info, people will be able to formulate "fact-based" answers to questions you may have, and be able to relate any experiences you may share to their own situation. For example, those from Seattle who read your information can benefit from it but there may be people in other parts of the country where the climate is similar and your advice could apply to them also. But unless they know what zone you are in, they don't know if your advice applies to them.

The zones also allow people to buy plants with reasonable expectation of whether or not they are suitable as perennials (coming back each year.)

"...the big names of plants that nobody knows" Yeah, nobody really likes it, but here's what's going on... Let's imagine you live in Chicago want to discuss daisies. You assume we are discussing Bellis perennis (english daisy.) But I live in Miami and assume we are discussing Gerbera Jamesonii (gerber daisies.) These plants have vastly different requirements (in fact, your plant would die in my yard and mine in yours) and our discussion would be pointless at best, and counterproductive at worst. Nobody is trying to show-off or talk above those who don't know the words used. Just making sure the exact plant being discussed is specified in scientific terms. We still walk around our yards talking about the "daisies."

One other cool thing about latin names; when you google a latin flower name instead of "daisy" on the IMAGES page, you get lots of pictures of the plant you wanted to see, not just a hodge-podge of everything including a cartoon character.