Bubba: I thought the elephant ears were pretty myself, especially the black ones; but my sister said, my dad had made the mistake of buying a few and planting them and they just took over, I used to live in Ohio as a child and my dad always had the biggest tomatoes and corn you ever saw. He truly had a green thumb. He bought 10 acres of land here and built a house and him and my mother planted gardens galore, both could grow anything; but the elephant ears started getting into his veggies and that is a no no. He had problems getting rid of them, so I decided to take my sister's advice and not plant them to start with. The problem with this area is you have all clay and sand, so have to amend the soil a lot. My dad used to do that hisself, he was raised on a farm; but, I'm just a beginner, so, have had success with cannas growing fairly well. I had beds put all round the house, removed about 2/3rds of the soil there and threw out some of it and then mixed in good top soil or gardening soil or jungle grow to make it better for my cannas to grow. I have a friend who owns a few acres in South Florida, and keeps it natural in his yard, he has water oak trees, crotons and just keeps it natural, looks like a national park and is very beautiful; problem is, most of what he grows won't survive the winters up in NW Florida and I don't go with the natural habitat sometimes, I like cannas and that is why I plant them. LOL I also don't care for the pine trees either. LOL
joy112854
Weird Cleopatra leaves-pics
Bubba1: Unfortunately, cannas that you google, you are told can't be gotten due to they are out of season; but, as luck would have it, I found an excellent place on line and did a search and found 3 beautiful cannas, one is a tall orange one, one is a Russian Red one, one is peach. The lady contacted me when I was persistent about her company not accepting cc's or other payment besides pay pal and she said she would take a check and just not mail them out til the check cleared, on further speaking with her, she also had a Bengal Tiger and a Stuttgart, so now this spoiled little brat has those coming too, of course! Not only that, she lives only 150 miles from me, we are neighbors. I'm so excited I'm almost doing handstands. To top it off, this morning I go outside and my much craved Rose Futurity was having it's first bloom, it was simply awesome. I wish my camera hadn't of been full so I could have taken a pic of all 12 of the cannas I have already in my beds in full bloom, they were simply breathtaking. I am remedying that problem though, as my sis is downloading all pics to her harddrive and then copying them to disc and then erasing the cards so I can get started taking pics of all these cannas. I have 7 that I know now will be hitting the beds before winter, and all 7 were planted from seed. I'm still making my Stuttgart my house plant as I don't have any shady spots in my yard.
joy112854
I am so excited for you! Nothing beats buying new flowers - especially if it is something you've been wanting for some time...
Elsa: The lady's business name is Jenny's Gardens and she is located like 150 miles from me. It's so hard to get cannas this time of the year as not too many people are growing them up North; but, here in Florida we can grow them year round. My Stuttgart should be okay as a house plant you think?
joy112854
Hi joy112854,
I don't know much about the Stuttgart. Surely if it loves shade, it will be okay inside. Maybe close to a window where it gets enough light? (I'm speculating....) :-)
Elsa
Elsa: My thoughts exactly. I want a few of every kind of cannas in the beds around my house, will give a variety of color and will look so lovely I think. You figure my house is 2.064 square foot big and my deck is 30 x12 and a 20 ft ramp on the front leaves lots of room for lots of cannas, I made the beds in the fronts of the house double wide beds so I can place the cannas alternately and have twice as many. So far, there are only 12 in the beds; but, before I'm through hope to have about 100 of them. I have plenty of red ones, I would like some white ones, at least one, I have the Cleopatra, the King Humbert and salmon, yellow, red and rose ones. So; am looking for a different kind, I do favor the tall ones though, the dwarfs I'm putting round the deck ramp.
joy112854
Hi Joy, please show us some photos! Can't imagine what your beds (and garden) must look like. My garden is about 150x36 feet (including the vegetable patch) Must add that I have flowers (and my cannas) growing in the "vegetable" garden. LOL!
I will hopefully have some white cannas this coming summer. I started some from seed, as well as a pearly pink, "Tropical Rose" and what was labeled as "multi colored". Will post pictures as soon as they are flowering...
Elsa: I have my beds which are double beds on both sides of the front of the house, the deck comes out from the front door, it's 30 x 12, being that the house is 2,064 square feet that makes pretty wide and long beds, I have planted 12 cannas on each front side, not to include I have beds on the sides of the house where I can plant 20 on each side, room for lots of cannas! Now; if I were to put a bed down the back of the house, hmmmm. LOL My veggie garden will go in back with tomatoes close to the back door; but, in grow boxes off the ground and on top of plywood that is on wooden construction horses, makes it easy to run outside and inspect leaves, twice daily with magnifying glass for horned catepillars to drop and stomp next season. Got my bengal tiger canna and stuttgart canna on the way, along with about 6 or 7 more. Christmas in September right? LOL
joy112854
Elsa: Looks like I'll be a busy beaver soon. I have heard back from many people about cannas and have the following on order: 1 Sunny Delight, 1 Orange Beauty, 1 Florence Vaughan, 12 Robert Kemps, 12 Yellow King Humberts, 12 Cleopatras, 13 Wyoming Oranges, 1 Stuttgart, 1 Bengal Tiger, 1 Canna Peach (Gigantum), 1 Canna Lily Russian; not to include 7 babys from seed. The others are still not coming up; so, if they don't I won't be too disappointed right?
joy112854
LOL! You definitely will be busy!! Hope you have someone to help you dig the holes... Please keep me in mind should you have any seeds to share. :-)
Your garden will definitely be stunning the whole year round...
Elsa
Elsa: I have 3 very young gardeners (landscapers) that love working in my yard and garden and they don't charge me very much to do so either, it is their hobby, so they are having three days off work next week and will be here to do the preparing of the beds for the cannas. Here's the thing, do I really need a dozen of each? I am getting them for around $4 a Rhizome, that included shipping by Fed Ex, so maybe I might trade some for some I don't have, that might be a great idea you think? I figure it will take a few weeks to get them, as the guy wants to wait til my check clears the bank, I don't have pay pal, before shipping them, still that's pretty cheap isn't it?
I'm in zone 8 and at first was worried we might wind up getting an early cold spell that might mess up the project; but after research, I think I'll be fine. If I get even the least bit worried I can rush to the store and get mulch and mulch the babies up.
joy112854
Joy, rhizome trading will be fun, but I'm not sure what our customs will do with life plants/tubers/rhizomes. Wouldn't want to have them confiscated to either dry out on some shelf or (even worse) end up in the official's garden and not mine!
They are very relaxed about letters coming into the country (scary actually!), but apparently they are stricter when it comes to parcels. :-(
I'm sure your rhizomes will be fine, especially once you've mulched. Mine flowered non-stop this past winter. The one I had before, used to go dormant in winter. Maybe it wasn't cold enough... but hey, I'm not complaining.
You are so lucky to have affordable labor. We have two gardeners in the complex where I stay, but I came to the conclusion a long time ago, that they pretend to not understand what is expected of them, just to prevent you from giving them extra work. They do the basic weeding - not in my garden as I have too many "unknown to them" plants in my garden - the one thought my Thalictrum that I nursed from seed, and was expecting to flower this summer was a weed, and got rid of it for me...), mowing of the lawn, watering etc. without me having to keep an eye on them (I am caretaker)
I did some planting last week (had hundreds of little plants that had to get settled, and in the process I pulled a muscle. Had to take it easy for three days, and boy! was it difficult?! I just love fiddling in the garden. Can't get enough!! LOL!
Enjoy your day,
Elsa
Elsa: I might store some of the rhizomes away til later since when they get here it will be considered Fall or early winter. Any suggestions on how to do this successfully, I've never done it before and have no clue what I'm doing.
joy112854
I haven't stored any myself. Maybe someone with experience can give you some better advice, but I'd say if you keep them dry and frost free they'd be okay. I don't know if you should keep them in some soil or moss or something...
Anybody have an idea?
Maybe you can ask the suppliers if you don't get any feedback.
I store my bulbs in my garage in a brown paper bag. I think some people use peat moss. But I used it once and discovered in spring there was mold in the peat moss 'cause the bulbs had a little moisture in them. You want them to be dry so they won't rot and you have to make sure they don't freeze.
Well from my first plant above in the pics did produce a canna out of 9 seeds that was planted..in the ground so here is a pic of that canna from a seed of my momma canna..
close up of the bloom
I had gotten 3 green leaf cannas to come up with my pretty one but I didnt get any variegated leaf kind after growing them abit so I tossed them to a neighbors house to grow..the other seeds didnt come up..
I have to admit you have absolutely stunning leaves on your cleos! Mine only have a rare stripe barely visible on the back of an occasional leaf.. otherwise.. they are green.. the blooms are definitely cleopatra blooms though. I would love to have a rhyzome like yours some day to give to my mother... hers is from mine and she delights in the cleo blooms.. is not even aware of the leaves because you literally have to lift them up and look under them to see any differences!
Tammie
Moodene: What a beautiful offsping, that one is really pretty.
joy112854