Ooh she is a big girl! beautiful, I like em big!

Denis

I'm impressed with your empress. Hope mine looks like that in a couple of years. Mine is in the ground.

Great growth!

Can't wait to see her this year!

That us a beautiful hosta you have. I tried growing some Big Daddy seeds but they do nothing. Does anyone know if Big Daddy gets almost as big as Empress Wu?

Shades of Audrie from The Little Shop of Horrors! Quit feeding her, she'll outgrow house and home! Where will you go when she gets crowded in this whopper pot? (Nice plant! You are doing something right for sure!)

-Babka

Big Daddy is pretty big at its largest, but not even close compared to Empress Wu.

It what I read online is correct, Big Daddy is about 2/3 the size of Empress Wu.

bk

Thanks all!

I do get people asking if my giant hosta eats the neighborhood pets. I usually reply that I wouldn't know because I never see any. Lol

And this is likely the largest pot I'm ever going to have. Even if I could find a bigger one, I probably couldn't afford it (I got this one for free from a nursery's trash) and I'd never be able to move it.

If she outgrows this one then I'll have to divide her or plant her. My aunt has already volunteered her garden should I ever decide to do that.

Wow! Nice progress. Your rescue hosta is rewarding you big time for saving her from the trash. I can't imagine how it ended up there. Note to self: Give my Empress Wu all the compost she wants!

Blacksheep- "I never see any". Made my day! THANKS!

-Babka

The hosta wasn't a garbage rescue, just the new flowerpot.

I have saved lots of plants from the trash over the years though. There's a flowerbed that I made at my mom's house a few years ago as a mother's day gift that's all trash rescue plants.

A couple morning light grasses, a scotch broom, a butterfly bush, a japanese maple and a couple perennials I forget the names of. They've all done great despite my mother's amazing skill of killing every plant she touches.

if your pix are on your hard drive ... you can load them right into the forum ... with the PHOTO button just below where you type ..

no need for the third party photo hosting site ..

ken

I was trying to do that with the pictures but it wasn't working for some reason. I selected the photo and a little loading circle spun for a few seconds, but then it just vanished and the picture never loaded.

What a GIANT!

Wow...that is one impressive hosta! I feel like I need to find a place for this one somewhere, not sure where I have that much room!

Thanks for sharing! :)

I bought my h.'Empress Wu' 5 years ago in a pot with 2 or 3 eyes. Here she is last year when she was 4 years in my garden :

It is supposedly to get much bigger. This one does not get much light but more than enough water. The stick on the picture is a 1 ft ruler.

Another great Wu, Bernd! I'm anxious to see what mine does this year. Here she is in year 3 -looking very symmetrical..

hosta photos · More Info

DD

WOW, Bernd! Fantastic!!!

I bet yours will double its size, DD!

Wow! Congrtulations! I have one not nearly as big as yours. 2015 will be its 4th year in my garden. Last year I moved the bed edge out about a foot while my husband rolled his eyes. I just showed him your pix and he said 'we're gonna need a bigger boat!'

zkathy did you do a shoot count? Just curious because mine have both gone from 4 to 7 shoots this season but so far are just out of the ground. If they looks as good as your, it will be very exciting

I never thought to count the eyes on mine, I just did a quick check though and it's got 29.

You can see 26 of them in the picture I took today, the other 3 are behind some of the larger ones.

(Hay I can upload pictures now!)

My gosh that will be huge when it opens Blacksheep . Make sure you post more pictures of this giant!

I have a baby Wu, but I have high hopes for her. Here's her picture today. I bought her 2 years ago but I've moved her twice. Poor baby Wu.

Blacksheep- How large is that container?

-Babka cf

I mentioned in my first post, the current pot is 30 inches wide and 20 tall.

I think she had seven shoots in one of the pics I took earlier, but they were big even coming up. I might have her planted too close to the rhododendron. Some one gave me a five foot tall rhododendron that looked perfect to be the empress' throne and it looks like it's survived the transplant, but everywhere I look this spring I can see my hostas are too crowded. It's so hard to imagine how big they can get.

Kathy

My Wu was showing 8 shoots yesterday. What a diff a week made! I'm beginning to think I am not a zone 7. I have a master gardener neighbor who said our neighborhood was 7. Maybe things are slow because of all the March snow, but my Wu seems to be a month behind Kathy's (7a NC).

Kathy, thanks for the reminder to not fill the "empty" spaces! I'm relocating an edge of diamond tiaras (because I moved the whole bed edge), and was looking at the open space wondering just what might fit. I think I'll sow some marigold seeds in there this year and give it plenty more thought.

I have a hot microclimate. My garden is a southwest facing slope. Doesn't help when there's a freeze, but the hill heats up early in the spring because the hardwoods haven't leafed out.

Kathy

My Wu hasn't even broken ground. I feel like I'm in a time warp in DE. zKathy, your Wu takes my breath away. It is a real beauty.

My h. 'Empress Wu' is coming up with 20 eyes this year, WOW!! We had a cold week, so all growth stopped, but it will get warmer and bigger.

Bernd- WOW is right! I can't wait to see pictures of her.

I have 11 sprouts up on my Wu. We're in a frost snap, so I pulled out the crop cover yesterday. The weatherliar thought we could have another week of cold nights. I think I'm ready for it.

Update:

Growing quite well. Already 18 inches tall. We had frost the other night but it does not seem to have damaged anything.

I just bought my first little Empress last year, so these are inspiring pictures. Blacksheep, I can't wait to see yours this year, and I like how you posted pictures with the yardstick. Kathy, that picture of yours unfurling is gorgeous. I'm going out to count the eyes on mine and hope for more than one!

For heaven sake! I must stop reading the forum after dark, because I have an irresistible impulse to take a flashlight outside to check my Wu which is in the ground--one of the few in my experimental bed along the driveway. I'm playing catch-up with my pictures, cannot seem to have them available on the device I'm using. The HOUZZ app on my iPhone does not have the forums as accessible from it. How is everyone dealing with is?

Not sure my EWu increased in eye count or not, but it is up.

There was an essay on extreme gardening in Fine Gardening magazine a few years ago. The illustration was a drawn cartoon, but I think they used my pix for it. I am often out in the yard at night, and in wet weather, and especially when the moon is bright. Something is always going on. I have an old flip phone because there are other places to spend my $, like at Bridgewood's "overstock" sale. I like his sales because I get smaller plants that seem to do better when planted in between others or over tree roots. I don't have room for another Empress, but he's got a bunch of medium I'd like to try.

Three pips up so far and I think a fourth is down there. Too soon to tell. good growth rate. 1,2,4 And ladt year it reached my finger tips!!!

I bought several plants at one of Bridgewood's sales years ago. Plants were young and small. One of those small plants is becoming now a very large h.'Niagara Falls'.