Two springs ago we were in Lowe's and a section of summer bulbs caught our eye. So we stopped and browsed. One that we liked was a Canna Lily.
Beautiful red, tropical-looking flowers; grows well in containers, but we want them for the beds; full sun; gets to about 36 inches tall. Great! Sounds perfect for the front beds!
There were supposed to be four, but we only got three large, oddly shaped tubers in the bag. We planted them in both of the front beds. We waited in eager anticipation and finally started to see the greens peek through the dirt!
We watched them grow and leaves started to unfurl and then eventually little buds appeared and yet they continued to grow...and grow...and grow!
Here's what our "Grows up to 36 inches" looked like after 3 months:
In fact, once they hit the 7-8' range we discussed how unlikely we thought it was that we would have purchased something that said it would get that tall. I consulted the packaging and that's when we realized the "up to 36 inches" part.
Well then.
I mean, they are beautiful (and are what finally brought hummingbirds to our yard!), but they may have been a bit much for the front of the house!
We finished building our 2nd story deck that fall and I decided that these would look incredible growing alongside the railing and so I pulled up the tubers after the frost.
Um. Remember how we started with 3 tubers?
I think I may have enough.
So I dried them and put them in our little storage room.
Because we don't have a garage or basement we really don't have a 40-45 degree place to store bulbs.
Come spring-time some of them seemed a little rotted and since I had plenty I threw several in the compost bin and planted several in pots and about half a dozen along the stair railing just waiting for our incredible 8' tall canna plants - but this time in a place that would be perfect for them to grow that big!
Well figures that they only got up to about 5' or less this time (the edibles garden only gets a few hours of sun in the morning throughout the spring whereas when they were in the front they got the intense afternoon sun that they must love as tropical flowers).
But they were abundant in one way....they grew.
I mean all of them.
Next thing I know I've got what are very obviously cannas growing out of my compost bin (which is in full and complete shade, by the way).
So I pulled a few tubers out of the bin and re-planted them along the stairs filling in the gaps I'd left in my spring planting.
And then more would pop up in the compost bin! Are you kidding me?!!
I started giving them away to friends and co-workers.
And the final accidental craziness was the small piece I'd missed about how new plants can grow out of both ends of the tuber...and sometimes out of the fingers in between.
So I started off with 6 plants spaced a couple of feet apart.
I filled in the gap with some "composted" tubers and so most ended up being more like 1 foot apart.
And then plants shot out both ends.
The result was a spectacular hot mess of clustered canna plants that did look great and of course the hummingbirds love them.
(This is taken from above)
The ones in the pots actually did seem to do better then the ones in the ground.
Lessons learned?
Cannas are like rabbits.
Other than that, well not a whole lot. They do like intense afternoon sun, apparently...or was it worse soil in the back? Or that they weren't fresh bulbs? Or that I started them too early? Or....?
Well I pulled a bunch of them inside again in the fall, so we shall soon see how the 2016 crop does!
(I also did an experiment where I left some in the ground and am very curious to see if those come up; they aren't supposed to in this region, but it was worth a try since I had so many. It's also been a very, wonderfully mild winter. Crossing my fingers!)
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