For me, this is the king of jungle perennial plants. The leaves are humungous - 3ft plus!. This is not a plant for the faint hearted and it needs a huge amount of space. It is said to be frost hardy but needs a bit of winter protection. In my experience of the winters of 2009/10 and 2010/11 in South Manchester, young plants are not hardy even with winter protection. In view of this, for the first couple of years, I would suggest you grow it in a giant pot, cutting the leaves back in autumn, fully protecting the crown with a garden fleece and when the temperature drops below freezing, bringing it indoors/ putting it in a greenhouse. Once the plant is mature, I expect winter protection will be enough.
This plant needs moist and fertile soil. It's a bog plant. If you do grow it in a pot at first add plenty of pre-watered, water retaining crystals to the soil-based compost along with additional fertilizer. I have used chicken poo pellets or manure as the fertlizer.
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