Cannas: Canna Musafolia, 1 by LarryR

LarryR wrote:
I have LOTS of Canna musifolia (Banana Canna), if anyone is interested in making a trade in the spring. The way I came to have this canna is about the weirdest gardening event I've experienced in my 51 years of gardening. In 1998 we had a freak storm that the weather folks dubbed a "mesocyclone." We had winds 100-150 mph, sustained for almost half an hour.

We lost 13 trees and in an instant went from being shade gardeners to gardening in bright sunshine. One of the casualties was a large, old maple in our front yard. The landscapers had removed the remains, ground out the stump, filled the hole with soil, and seeded it with grass. As I was watering the sprouting grass seedlings one day, I noticed a sprout that definitely was not grass. Being curious, I dug it up and potted it. It turned out to be a Banana Canna! I was astounded, because we were not growing cannas at the time, so it must have been in the landscapers' soil. Not only that, it was early enough in the season, so that cannas in our area were not producing seeds yet. The seed must have overwintered!

As those of you who grow this canna know, it is quite vigorous. It produced blossoms the same year that the seed germinated. In the fall, my wife and I cut the stalks, hauled them to our vegetable garden, and tossed them on our annual fall refuse pile to dry and be burned. The next spring, we had volunteer cannas coming up all over our vegetable garden! We let most of them grow, just to see what we'd get. The most promising seedling to date has golden-green leaves, a narrow gold leaf margin, and blossoms whose petals are bright red on top and bright orange on the underside. I'm thinking about registering it, but haven't been able to find out how to proceed. If anyone knows the procedure, please point me in the right direction.

Wow! I just realized I've been rambling on forever. Sorry about that. :) Below is a photo of one of this year's BC clumps (far right), which eventually grew to about 8 feet tall.