this is probably the key for me... being in equivalent zones due east of each other ...

when you make significant temp and light changes.. you must harden the plant off to such changes ..

you can not take it from a rather cozy basement ... and just throw it outside .. and hope for the best ... [well you can.. but that is when you are so pissed off at it.. you wish it would just die.. what i cal.. putting it out of my misery ...]

we live in a zone that is rather cruel in march/april ... and into mid may at least ...one day sunny and 60ish . and the next.. single digits with blistering winter winds .... you know it.. i know it.. so dont live in denial ...

near a window.. for a week or so ... moving it into more and more sunllight ... hardening it off as you go ... same if she has a light stand or some such ....

ken

ps: i still think it looks like grass ... are you .. is she sure.. its the hosta ?????

bird seed?

probably severely starved of light

hence longish stems with little foliage

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as Ken said, a frost now will probably kill it.

how many pots are we talking about?

and is there any chance she could heel in her pots for next winter. in the ground (with pots) they should be better off

Hosta are reasonably frost hardy,

the melting and refreezing does the damage

I am sorry, but I find I am confused.

"She is overwintering it in her basement storage closet." What temperature is this area kept generally?

"She grows her hostas in pots on her deck. But she lives in an apartment, so has limited places to overwinter hostas." So was the deck not available to overwinter her hosta?

"I was going to suggest she put it in a sheltered place outside, like under the deck . . . " Was this not a place she could overwinter hosta since you say it is an option for her to place this hosta in now?

Was the hosta dormant when it was placed in basement storage? I am wondering if it ever really went dormant and has been trying to grow for a long time.

I agree with Ken that the plant should be placed near an indoor window for right now. And then see what happens. It might need to be repotted. When the weather outside improves, slowly get it used to outdoor light and temperatures.

It's good to try different things. You never know what will work if you don't try.

I asked her last night, after I posted, why she put this one in her storage closet instead of under the deck, where she successfully stored her only other hosta, Mighty Mouse last winter. (FWIW, under the deck does not belong to her, but to the building, so she takes a certain risk that anything under there will be taken by another tenant or thrown out by management. So far, it's been fine)

It's because there is also an elephant ear bulb (colocasia) planted in the pot, and her elephant ears (by my prior advice) overwinter well in the basement storage closet. I probably should have suggested she separated the 2: but not being there, I didn't realize they were in the same pot.

She is not a veteran gardener, despite growing up with me, so the things I / we do as a matter of course without even thinking about it would not necessarily occur to a beginner.

Ken, I asked her if it was a grass too. She said no.

newhostalady, I don't know the temperature of the storage closet; it has a concrete floor and is dark. It is cold enough to keep the other elephant ears from growing, but if its like MINE, I'd guesstimate 50 degrees F. I told her to let everything get frosted and dormant before she stored anything. I figured the deck itself was not a good place to overwinter, as it could freeze all around the pot. The deck is 1 story off the ground level. But that was only a guess on my part.

linaria_gw , 1 pot. She grows mostly annuals and herbs. This one with the etoliated growth was a combo planter with an EE bulb and some annuals (the dead foliage you see behind the plant). She has another hosta (Mighty Mouse) stored under the deck: that one did not have anything else in the pot but annuals, so the annuals were allowed to die, as she only wanted to save the hosta.

So I understand better now. Thanks for explaining. If I were in her shoes, I would be worried about overwintering under the deck since it didn't belong to me. If the deck belongs to her, I think that would be the first place to consider for overwintering. One thing to bear in mind is the amount of sun the deck would get. The more sun the deck gets, the more challenging to keep the hosta dormant. I experimented leaving a very large pot upright with hardy perennials last year. I put an old pane of glass on top to keep most moisture out. All was fine until the sun got stronger and heated up the pot and dried it out. This year I am doing the same experiment but have moved the pot into the shade. If your daughter had some furniture on the deck, could the pot/s be put under them? Could your daughter get a container and fill it with leaves to place the pots in for overwintering? Make sure the container has holes on the bottom for drainage and that it is not in the sun. Tip the pot/s over when frozen to make sure they don't get too wet.

I think the storage closet is a great place to overwinter the elephant ears, but not for any hosta. It's too warm.

Do remove anything growing on the hosta now. It's not good anyways. It will be interesting to see how this hosta looks in the summer time.

It looks like this hosta has been trying to grow for quite a while now. It may go into dormancy early this year. The former President of the AHS said the longer the dormancy period, the stronger the hosta. So if this hosta survives this season, it will need to go dormant at the end of the season for a good amount of time to regain its strength. I think maybe your daughter should take the chance and overwinter it under the deck---with her name on it and a sign "do not throw out!"

Give it some more light and see what happens, similar to the way growers "force" plants out of dormancy early to have a nice full plant to sell in early Spring. It doesn't look like a hosta to me either. If she GENTLY follows those shoots into the soil is there a crown that they are attached to?

My hostas in pots outside (zone9) are sprouting, as they do normally, and they don't go dormant in Fall any later than you Zone 5 peeps.

-Babka

Her deck faces west, in full sun. There was a 1 story garage behind the building that provided some late afternoon shade, but it collapsed last month after a heavy snowfall (!). Unless a new garage is built (I don't know whether one will be) that makes the deck much more sunny than it used to be.

It's going to affect later afternoon sun angling under the deck as well.

I think you are way over thinking this. Put it in more light, don't let it freeze and see what you get.

I still don't believe that is a hosta sprouting early, who knows what it is? Have some fun here and see what happens in a few more weeks. Surprises are good these days.

-Babka

Due to sun exposure, overwintering under the deck is the best option. Pots usually emerge earlier in the spring, and ones overwintered there will probably rise earlier. If your daughter really wants to keep hosta, she will just have to place the growing hosta in the home in early spring and outside when weather permits.

She needs to separate the two plants since they need very different conditions. The elephant ear needs much warmer winter conditions than the Hosta.