Out of this list you posted I have an 'Earth Angel' in a 3 gallon pot that's been in it for the 4th season and it must like it because it had plenty of flowers as well as pods this year.

I can only speculate as to her reasons for Diana's statement and I suspect it has to do with the tendency for plants to stay smaller than their genetic potential when potted. I grow the bulk of my hostas in pots, out of necessity -I'm on a 50x100 city lot- and I can readily see the difference in size between for example my mature 'Hyacinthina's in the yard and the ones in pots. One would think that one of the reasons most people by large hostas is because of the imposing and impressive presentation they make when mature, something you lack when planted in a pot.....'Empress Wu' would look out of place in a pot.

Pieter

Gee, Jan, I did not know she had epressed this about some hosta. I have only one of the above named hosta, and I have two Midas Touch in a small plastic tub, with two August Moon. I guess ignorance is bliss, what I don't know won't hurt me?
But so far so good with those four very lovely golden leafed hosta in this pot. They are young. I shall perhaps have to remove them if they get large, but probably through next growing season, their second year, I expect to leave them in the tub. Here is a picture of them. I put a church steeple-shaped bird house in the middle for height.

I cannot tell from this picture why it or any of the others should be inappropriate in a container. I will look up the others though, and see if their shape has anything to do with it.

Jan,

Remember that she is in England. Ken once followed her recommendations and fried a bunch of hosta. Also, as an aside, the foremost radio gardening guy in our town says you can't grow hosta in pots!

I actually do think some hosta do better in pots than others. My So Sweet is nicer than most you'll see. My Blue Angel struggles. I really think it needs to be in the ground. I also think the good pot varieties will vary by region. We'll learn as we try different hosta in differnt regions.

JMHO

bkay

So - perhaps I'll leave 'Brother Stephan' in a pot for another season, as well as my new 'So Sweet'. I'm fast running out of good ground options, but the thrill of visiting a good garden centre and bringing home something new isn't abating at all. So pots, here I come.
Jan

Jan, I'm going to repeat what my parrots now say, "You're so funny!"

Pots here I come sounds good to me! Yeah, I love pots, and very pleased that you are trying them too. Your mileage may vary, since you are a lot further north than I am. But container gardening can allow infinite change of location to fine tune conditions for your special hosta.

And, for the mini hosta, nothing beats a round shallow bowl to keep them from being consumed by their larger neighbors.
I have two such bowls planted with minis, and sank an unglazed terracotta water jug in the middle to aid in keeping them properly watered. The tiny things don't have the endurance of the larger plants with more soil around them, and a larger root ball.

I've had Brother Stefan,(there is no "Brother Stephan" listed at the HL), in a pot since 2009 and he is doing gangbusters. I think the only limit with pots is now big you can handle. I'm sure Empress Wu would like one of those 75+ gal pots where she would not have to share the soil with say, a big tree.

-Babka

Stefan it is, and Frances. I'll get them right yet!

bkay - you should invite radio guy to tour your yard. With a bit of promo you might start a new trend in your area.
Jan

Babka-you've gotten me thinking! I realize you are waaaay over there where the ocean keeps you warmer in winter and I am here in the midwest in Z5 +/-: who knows any more what zone we are in. But what if I were to place my Emperess Wu in a 55 gallon or larger container. In one that big would I still have to worry about freezing the crown in a block of ice (which I read is why pots are tipped in winter)?

This girl isn't going to be tipping over any 55 gallon pots, and I don't expect my big-bro wouldbe thrilled about it either!

I now have a vision of a man-made (or even me-made) container, elevated above the ground that's big enough for Wu and my artistic mind is dreaming up all kinds of designs. Even visiting the many resale stores
Wilmington is known for may turn up something totally suitable. One never knows what can be found there, and who needs any better excuse to go shopping:) (he-he)

Is suitability for pots simply a matter of the size a hosta needs?

(psst; whisper your answers. I am not sure Les will like where this might be going!)
Theresa

Theresa- Not everyone tips their pots. I don't. I just put them where the sun don't shine and they stay dry during our rainy season called Winter. There are people here who have hostas growing in 1/2 barrels. Something that large is less likely to freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw. Perhaps they will speak up? Or a new post that says something like "Has anyone Stuck their Wu in a barrel?" ;-)

-Babka

My Empress Wu hardly grew the year I had it in a huge pot. It ended the season only have the size of the one that was in the ground. Also, with it's huge leaves, it was way more susceptible to the stems breaking when the wind blew. I ended up having to stake the leaves. It was a huge mess.

I find that my hostas with ruffled edges love the old style terracotta clay pots. No explanation for it.

I had over 50 hostas in pots last year. We moved most of them under the deck, but did forget to move some. They all survived, even the ones sitting out in the middle of the garden.

I love placing hostas in pots to add dimension to the gardens. I also don't have much choice since I've pretty much run out of room!

Here's a picture of one of our beds. 5 out of the 11 hostas are in pots:

The best advice I can give about putting them in pots is not to buy the heavy ones, they get hard to move.

Gesila

Gesila, what is the dark green, light edged hosta (planted in the ground) that is lower right side in the photo? Is a pretty one.

Could one of the reasons for some hosta not doing well in pots be because of the length of roots? I'm just starting to notice roots...after you (Gesila) remarked about how short the roots were on your Hoosier Harmony. (Mine were really short, too.)

OTOH, when I got my last order from Green Mtn, (some of) the roots on the Montana Aureomarginata were at least as long as the plant was tall...over a foot long! I only wish that I had a whole 12 inches of topsoil, living where I do in the bottom of what was once a glacial melt lake. I ended up chopping 4'' off the longest couple of roots because they would have been in gravel anyway.

when i moved the 1650 pots ...of my 100 odd losses.. about 80 of them were my favorite blues ...

and it was suggested by solberg or wade.. that the tokudama/sieboldianna family .. does not like COLD sodden roots ... [and those listed in your posts are mostly form that background]

they made it thru winter... but rotted in spring.. as rain and snow accumulated in pots the were alternately thawed and frozen ... my DONT LET THEM TURN INTO AN ICE CUBE theory

and it all occurred.. after being tipped over.. or stored on their sides.. it happened when they sprouted early.. and i had them upright ... so as to trap moisture

so the theory.. was that they dont like cold wet roots/media ..

i obviously have no clue why grenfell states such.. other than to suggest.. as our hostaman [???] does.. many english peeps are all pots.. all the time ... simply due to very small gardens ...

so.. it MIGHT simply be a media/drainage issue ... based on a family/species

ken

The dark green, light edged hosta is Dust Devil. It got hit hard by two frosts this year, so it's not as pretty as it was last year. Dust Devil is a sport of Whirlwind. I bought it when I was on the search for all the Whirlwind sports. The hosta to the right of it is also a Whirlwind sport, Eternal Flame.

Gesila is right about the whiskey barrels being super heavy. I bought two of them, planning to have hosta there. However, I changed my mind since I could not even budge the first one, could not slide the dolly forks under it, talk about heavy....so I dumped it out and put in a lot of fairly large styrofoam pieces in the bottom third, then the lightened up draining soil mix, and planted a young white bird of paradise. It can stay outdoors this winter with some protection, and I won't have to move it. Good thing, since I simply cannot, still, move that danged pot. Here is the latest photo of the barrel and the plant.

Meanwhile, the second whiskey barrel sits empty, turned upside down for use as a table near a lawn chair.

Ci, my orders from GreenMt which had the field grown hosta had mostly long full roots. I am happy to get the ones cut off mature clumps since that will shorten the time it takes to get mature plants in my garden.

Meanwhile, I moved all but a few of my 200+ hosta in pots to safer locations yesterday, wore me out! Having a fiberglas pot with a rolled rim is the easiest to move. My fingertips can go beneath the rim flange, and I can carry two at a time without danger of dropping them. Lowes had some of theirs on sale recently, and I found several that were very deep pots, so the long roots had room to go deep too. However, even the tiny plants just recently potted up, their roots are reaching out to the full diameter of the containers. I'm thinking a communal pot for several of the smaller (not mini) hosta could be used to advantage. Since I am not using pots as a temporary measure, but a style of garden, it won't really matter if the roots mix together. I can see how it would be an issue for temporary potting, for those you plan to eventually put in the ground.

Hey, I think my hosta are loving the tropical weather we are getting today. So far no torn leaves, and they like the rain coming in waves today. We'll see if our rainfall gets close to the possible 20 inches they say some might get. The river nearby is already within a foot of the bridge over it...near our neighborhood.

I reread the post by Theresa above, about the 55 gallon drum. And I realized that you can have those cut in half. I was thinking about two halves that were cylindrical, but it could be done with two crescent shaped ones also.

With two cylinders, I'd think you could improve drainage by having several rows of holes drilled around the edges, not on the bottom itself. That way, no problem with sticking pot feet under the heavy thing. And you'd have a 27 gallon pot.

With other pots surrounding the container, nothing of the metal or plastic would show except in the winter. I'd think such a container might be appropriate for the tokudama and sieboldiana family too?

I have tokudama flavocircinalis in a pot, will keep an eye on it this winter and spring, it is really pretty. And my Elegans, it's new, looking elegant as it should in its container. I do not think it would benefit from being in the ground in my climate, due to the wet winters. I may discover that neither family of hosta can take the weather here under any circumstances, but only time will tell.

Here is Elegans in a tall pot. Giving it my best shot.

We have a dwarf black locust "twisty Baby" in a half barrel that stays on a plastic dolly so we can roll it across the deck when we need to move it. It is a good idea to get them off the ground a little to keep the bottom from rotting so fast. Helps drainage too.

-Babka

PS. 20"! We don't get even 1/2 that much in a whole year! Do you have hip waders? ;-)

{{gwi:1078882}}

I don't think it's the freeze/thaw cycle that gets them. Mine freeze and thaw all the time. Typically, our winter daytime temps are 40-60 degrees. We generally get our freezing temps at night, REGULARLY. So, mine freeze at night (not generally below 25*) and thaw in the day - over and over. They sit in the sun, as their pecan tree has no leaves from November until May. If it rains, they get wet. If it doesn't, they stay dry. However, we never have the kind of weather that would freeze them solid for more than 48 hours.

I think the problem is drainage, same as the rest of the year. If you live where pots freeze like an ice cube, you want them to stay that way. Otherwise, the pot can half thaw. Then you have a pool of water sitting right on the crown that has nowhere to go. If you tip the pot, that can't happen.

If you can't tip the pot, then you have to find another way to prevent that. You could wait until they're slightly damp and cover them with plastic. You could put them under the eaves of the house or on a covered porch. You could lay some insulation on the top of the plant and then cover it with plastic.

Now, here's where the theory breaks down. If the pot is frozen like an ice cube, it is held at 32 degrees. At my house, it usually doesn't get below 25. So, my sieboldiana never gets below that temperature. It grows just fine. In Nebraska, it get really cold. If you had a pot not frozen like an ice cube (assuming that the pot has to be wet to freeze like an ice cube), would the lower temps damage the plant? I don't have a clue.

I think Ken should do an experiment. ;)

bkay

Bkay,

You are right that drainage in the Great White North is the reason why we tip the pots. Here in NE we'll have a month of temps that don't get above 32 degrees and then a January thaw in which we get 50 degrees for a week and two days of rain. A potted Hosta that remains upright would sit in water in a half frozen pot during that thaw and it would likely rot.

The general rule of thumb for overwintering things in a pot is that the plant should be able to survive in the ground in at least two zones colder, to be safely wintered over in a pot. In other words in zone 5 you need a plant rated for zone 3 to be able to winter it over in a pot. That suggests to me that extreme cold (i.e. Zone 4a or 3b) would preclude overwintering in pots. Anyone have experience with this?

Steve