Canna Display
I have always been fond of cannas. I am partial to their colorful and asymmetrical flowers as well as their large, tropical-looking leaves. When I first started growing cannas, I couldn’t get them to bloom. I later realized that they weren’t blooming, because I wasn’t watering them enough.
I live in a region that only gets about 15″-20″ of rain per year, and most of that rains falls from November through March. It hasn’t rained at our house this year since late February. When I water them at least every few days, cannas grow rapidly and bloom in a few months, even though I never fertilize them. As soon as they dry out, they stop growing. They seem to not like having their roots dry out during the growing season.
Because cannas like to be moist, they tend to attract snails. Snails eat the leaves while the cannas are growing, leaving an unattractive pattern of holes in the leaves. I haven’t been able to find an effective control for the snail problem. Putting copper tape around the base of each steam is not really practical, especially because the stems need to be cut to the ground as soon as they finish blooming. I don’t like to use liquid snail poison or pellets, because they wash away quickly after a watering. I have been hand picking the snails off the leaves.
I am not sure what these cannas are called. A friend gave them to us.
July 19 2008 09:46 pm | Cannas