PLANTprofile

Canna

By Kathy Jentz

Canna is an annual tropical flowering plant that lends drama to the landscape with its fabulous foliage and colorful blooms in mid-summer in our Mid-Atlantic region. The foliage can be green, bronze, burgundy, solid, or striped. The flowers can resemble an orchid, iris, or gladiola and have a sunset-like color range from pinks to yellows to oranges to reds. All Canna lilies originated in the tropical and sub-tropical Americas. They went to Europe in the mid-16th century and then on to Asia, South Africa, and Australia. Canna breeding took off in these regions and they have returned many wonderful cultivars to our gardens in recent decades. Canna can be purchased in three forms: seeds, rhizomes, and potted plants. Due to the Canna yellow streak virus, it is recommended that Canna be started from seed or if rhizomes are offered, you should ensure that they be certified virus-free. If you start from seed indoors in early spring, you can then transplant them outdoors when any danger of frost is gone. Canna do best in full sun and moist, rich soil. If you are satisfied with having only the foliage, Canna can be planted in part-shade conditions. Gardeners in our region have found that their Canna may reliably over-winter and return when they are planted against brick walls, along greenhouses, and in south-facing locations. You can give them extra mulch as some insurance against an exceptionally cold winter. You can also pull the plants in October, cut off the stalks, and store their rhizomes in peat moss (or similar material) in a dark, cool spot. Canna are useful in the summer garden at the back of mixed borders, in containers, and as a privacy screen. Canna sizes span from dwarf forms around three feet tall to tall standards over 10 feet. Two of our favorite varieties are ‘Ermine’, which has a creamy-yellow flower and thrives in a wide variety of growing conditions, and ‘South Pacific Orange’, an AllAmerica Selections winner that is a compact grower, perfect for containers. o

Kathy Jentz is the editor and founder of Washington Gardener.