Searching online for information regarding Canna can get discouraging for anyone who objects to the idolatry of Cannabis. It does not help that Canna indica is one of the more common species of Canna. Search engines seem to believe that they know more of what I want information about than I do. Well, I happen to enjoy my ten or so Canna. In fact, I grow way too many of them.  Three cultivars are particularly numerous here, even after giving most of them away to friends and neighbors. If installed directly into a landscape, rather than canned, there would be enough for a row almost exactly a hundred feet long! That would be with one foot spacing!

1. Gophers ate almost all of three of the four original Canna here. I canned the surviving rhizomes within only ten #1 cans. All three cultivars are now generating vigorous shoots.

2. Canna rhizomes are so extremely discounted at the end of their season that I violated my rule that forbids the purchase of new plants. It is very late, but they are growing well.

3. ‘Red King Humbert’ rhizomes cost less than a dollar each. Three got canned into each of ten #5 cans. They only need to grow enough before autumn to survive through winter.

4. Canna flaccida, or what I hope might be Canna flaccida, was dug and recycled after it had started growing last spring. New foliage emerged through its damaged older foliage.

5. ‘Wyoming’ was recycled from the same landscape, and at the same inconvenient time. Like the others, it will recover prior to winter dormancy, and then be ready for next year.

6. Canna bloom is about as appealing as the foliage is. Ours bloom bright yellow, orange or red. Others bloom with pastel yellow, pastel orange, pink or very pale yellowish white.

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate: https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/

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31 thoughts on “Six on Saturday: Canna Diss”

  2. Such a pretty bloom. I must get over my image of ‘canning’ each time I read it on your posts. I imaging sealing in tinned cans for the winter eating like with fruit and veg. I need in insert my word ‘potting’ as I read it in my head. But I love hearing different terms for words.

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    1. Canna edulis, which is known as achira, does not have a ‘season’. I mean that it lives in the garden all the time, and can be dug at any time. Therefore, I will not likely ever can any of it in jars. I suppose that it can be canned like potatoes, but doing so makes about as much sense as canning potatoes. Not many of us bother canning something that can just be left in the garden. Achira was what prompted me to start growing Canna a while ago, but after all this, there is only one #5 can of it here so far. Fortunately, it grows fast, and makes plenty of genetically stable seed.

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  3. Pingback: 🌺Bank Holiday Weekend #SixOnSaturday From My English Garden #GardeningTwitter #GrowYourOwn | Rosie Amber

  4. I too love your posts on cannas. We don’t grow them much here because they bloom so late for us. Most of us want plants that perform all summer and cannas are just coming into bloom now!

    I have grown one of the more spectacular ones, whose name escapes me, just as a foliage plant in my pond. It never bloomed and that was okay. Now I just have floating plants. The frog seems to prefer that.

    Karla

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    1. Canna glauca and its cultivars are the most popular Canna for ponds. However Canna flaccida, which seems to lack cultivars, is also popular. ‘Australia’ Canna grows in one of the ponds here because it was living on the bank of the pond when the pond got deeper. I suspect that any of the Canna here can live on the edge of a pond. I do not know how far into the water the particular cultivars will go though.

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      1. I hunted through my blog photos. The last time I had that canna it was canned in a on one gallon pot and it was on the bottom of my 21″ deep pond. It stayed that way all summer for several summers until I got tired of over-wintering it in the basement. So they can get pretty deep in the water–

        Karla

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      2. Do you mean Canna glauca, flaccida or ‘Australia’? I do not know who the parents of ‘Australia’ are, but that cultivar is one that happens to be well rated for ponds. I suspect that many or most are well rated for ponds, but have not been written about. (You know how someone writes about a particular cultivar years ago, and then everyone else copies the information.)

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      3. It was a named cultivar and even that escapes me–so I am afraid that I can’t shed much more light on that subject. I thought I was better at garden records but lately every time I hunt for a name….Sigh.

        Karla

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  5. You are certainly stocking up on canna! Ours are almost over now – the tall ones especially. The smaller ones are still flowering orange and yellow. I think we will have to do some splitting this year as they are outgrowing their allotted space!

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    1. If I could, I would install a large colony in my home garden. I just do not want to give them all the water they want. Unfortunately, the two largest groups here might be virused, so can not mix with the others that have been here for more than half a century. We will likely install a large colony of them, but it will be a significant distance from the garden that some of the others will return to. I was able to share some of the ‘Australia’ with colleagues, but can not do that with these two.

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      1. I’ve only seen one gopher in 15 years and that one was up a tree. It probably climbed there to escape something that was chasing it. Nothing seems to hurt these cannas, except drought. They didn’t bloom at all this year.

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      2. UP A TREE?!?! WOW! That is just one more of many reasons to stay inside!
        Cannas have been getting virused for the past many years. That is why I must keep the two big batches separated from the older Canns. I can not see the symptoms, but some viruses compromise vigor.

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      4. CUTE?! That thing looks like a . . . well, it looks scary! It is not a gopher though. I do not know what a groundhog is, but it is different from a gopher. Regardless, I would not get near it.

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      1. Really? I am not as impressed by the seed pods as the seeds within. They are like black ball bearings. The fancy cultivars are generally sterile, so do not generate seed, although some of them sometimes do. I got a few seed from ‘Wyoming’. I really wonder how genetically stable they are, and if their progeny will be similar to the parent. The simpler sorts are generous with their seed. If this Canna flaccida really is Canna flaccida, rather than a hybrid, it should generate an abundance of seed. Of course, I have no idea of what to do with them.

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      3. Yes, this is one of two species that is native to America, and the one that is most popular for ponds. Its cultivars bloom with other colors besides yellow. Canna flaccida is an ancestor of many of the modern cultivars, but does not have any commonly available cultivars of its own, and is not as popular as Canna glauca. Both are easy to grow from seed, and relocating rhizomes is very easy as well.

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