Bright orange flower adds wow factor to any sunny location. Well worth overwintering in northern climates. Here's how:
This is a species canna, so it can be grown from seed.
The 6' row of these against the wooden fence of my backyard is in full bloom. It's July and with the flower and stem they are 6 feet tall. A couple are almost 7 feet because they are taller than the fence. I had sprayed them regularly with Sevin to keep caterpillars away, but we just had 3 weeks of off and on rain that interrupted my spraying regiment, and this week there were signs of caterpillar invasion. It's raining less, so I cut the rolled buggy leaves and started spraying again. Cutting them to the ground after they flower encourages new growth from the rhizomes and I get a fall display of flowers again here in zone 9.
Back in the 1990's I ordered some Yellow King Hubert Cannas along with Red King Hubert Cannas as tubers and started them in the small greenhouse at the hospital grounds where I worked as a groundsman. I used them around the grounds for about ten years in annual flower beds as some of the taller annual plants. The Yellow King Huberts I grew did not show lots of red in the flower, just some red dots, and they had green foliage. It is a common cultivar used in the northern USA as an annual. After the frost killed the plants to the ground in late fall, I would dig up the tubers and store them in moist peatmoss in cardboard boxes in a cool inside place. In April I would cut the tubers to nice pieces and plant them in pots. I would grow the plants inside until mid or late May to plant outside once again. Bumblebees love the flowers. Unfortunately, Japanese Beetles also like to eat holes in the flowers, so watch out.
C. 'Wyoming': Ah, a Canna of some mystery. Are we surprised!?
I've always known this as Red King Humbert. It is a very common cultivar in the Midwest and Eastern USA. It is often used as one of the tall annuals in the back of a bed or in the middle of a detached bed.
This canna sunburns easily because of the white leaves, especially if it is kept on the dry side. It is safer to keep it in a shady or semi-shady area; also, providing plenty of water, even placing the canna's container in standing water, will help with sunburn issues.
This is one of my favorite Cannas. It seems to be resistant to most of the things that I hate about Cannas. Doesn't seem to get bothered by leaf rollers like many of the others, doesn't get rust blooms if we've been getting rain, or not, and it's in a area of the yard that isn't easy to water when we don't get rain.
This is a most distinctive canna, both in the foliage, which is variegated green with pale yellow running parallel to the veins, and the flowers, which are yellow with a "signature" cross across each bloom, made by a white stripe.
This is a dwarf canna.
