where have you been??? .... lol ...

that is a pic of brian skaggs.. GRHS ...

his garden soil.. was made of 20 odd years of compost/manure .... he grew it too perfection .... it will NEVER grow like that in my sand ...

there are a multitude of GIANT or XL hosta ...

and your zone is your only limitation .... i know you got that one pot to winter over.. but one warm winter.. and .. well.. who knows...

do keep hanging around.. so that you may become fully enabled ...

ken

Ken, I'm working on it! The only hostas I see are in nurseries, and of course, they aren't anywhere near as large as that one. I had no idea they get that large. I don't think something like that would thrive here, even in perfect soil. My soil is heavy clay, except for the areas I've turned into gardens or flowerbeds.

I did pick up a second hosta to try, it's Halcyon. I think, if someone else in my area can grow 300 of them in pots, I can have several successfully. The one I overwintered has about 8 or so growths coming up now. Growing in pots is okay with me. After all, there are a lot of plants that we grow in the ground that y'all up in the cold northlands have to grow in pots and keep warm in the winter.

Do you mean enabled or addicted? ha, it would be easy with hostas!

Fully enabled for addiction. :)

Don B.

I planted an Empress Wu,from Proven Winners last year. It is up now,but a long way from unfurling a leaf. My Dino,new this year has started to unfurl a leaf,and the second one is coming,but apparently,the variegation comes on later,as you can barely tell that it is variegated. Phil

Hey there, EAH........
Note my zone is 9a in south Alabama, a mile or so south of I-10 and a mile or so west of Mobile Bay. About 450 miles east of me, in Jacksonville, is ILOVETOGROW, Paula, another hosta addict.

Glad to have another zone challenged hosta lover join the conversation. Consider yourself a pioneer of the hosta frontier.
I have a lot of Flickr albums of my hosta, and you are welcome to browse through them. MoccasinLanding is the name there too.

I have about 325 hosta, if all come up again this spring. I'm new to the game, enabled as I was in spring of 2012. It's possible to go from 12 hosta to 304 in 6 months, believe me.

Empress Wu is not one of my babies. But I have a few young versions of very large hosta, all except 3 total hosta are in containers. If any get bigger than I can push around the garden in pots, then they'll have to be content in the ground....fighting mostly tree roots.

Welcome, and enjoy the forum.

Wade and Gatton's 'Sum and Substance' is quite massive as well....Scroll to bottom of link.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wade and Gatton's giant Hosta

I saw Van's Sum and Substance in 2011. It's more than 9 feet across. That picture doesn't do it justice!

My Empress Wu is growing at three times the rate of my Sum and Substance. I got mine before it was a Proven Winner, it will be in its fourth season this spring.

My Jurassic Park is growing as fast as Empress Wu, but it doesn't seem to have the height that Wu does.

Now, like Ken said, I'm back to finishing up my tax season.

Gesila