What romantic misconception were you under when you bought this weed?

Here is a link that might be useful: Akebia on invasive.org

No - that's as big as the flowers and leaves get.

Sorry to disagree but both flowers and leaves will get quite a bit larger. This is a very young plant and has not reached proper maturity. Full sized leaves should be about 3-5 inches acoss and held in groups of 3 or 5, depending on species.Flowers get about double in size to those in photo and are clustered in long racemes of 4-6 inches.

And fwiw, this vine is NOT a weed everywhere. Like all other invasive plant species, location is everything. And even in areas where it can be, it won't if you remove the fruit. And since the fruit is pretty skanky anyway (virtually no flavor and with the consistancy of mushy tapioca - ugh!!), might as well just grow the plant for the fragrant flowers and the shade tolerant, evergreen foliage.

That's interesting, I've never heard of a plant doing that. I thought the way plants were, once they got old enough, they just bloomed, and the flowers were the same size every year, I mean, bigger on average as the plant gets older and hardier, but not a real significant change in scale.

huh.

Perhaps I wasn't very clear :-) What I meant was that is obviously not a very mature plant since it is still in a container, not that these particular leaves or flowers will increase in size. An established, mature akebia vine in the ground will produce larger both leaves and flowers.

Well, Gardengal, mine is about 7 years old and the leaves and flowers aren't that much bigger than when it was a young plant. The leaves are about 3" across and the blooms are about the size of a dime.

no, I got what you said, I just find it odd.
Like I said, plants usually just start flowering one season all of a sudden, but the flowers are normal size, and don't get any serious change in scale, perhaps just a bit bigger on average from hardiness that comes with age

Kayjones, I don't know what to tell you. Individual akebia flowers here are about the size of a quarter, maybe larger, and each compound leaflet is about 3" long and 5-6" across.

The one in the photo above is minute compared to that.