I have beds all round the house with about 80 cannas in them, I planted them a good 18 inches apart when I planted them so they could have some room. But, that makes for lots of weeding, now I want to plant something in there to fill in the spaces but what? What could I plant that would look good in between the cannas and yet not take over the bed and not do my canna lilies in? Any suggestions? Hostas perhaps or no? Other flowers perhaps and if so what kinds?
joy112854
Companion Planting for the Canna Lily Beds?
I am no expert on Cannas so someone else might have a better opinion.I helped my sister in SC plant about 30 cannas in a 30 to 40 ft. circular bed in the spring of 2007. In the spring of 2008 the bed had to be enlarged as the cannas had spread and filled in between them selves and wer starting to grow outside of the bed. I know they were fertilized pretty well so that probably had alot to do with it, but i think you may want to see how much they fill in between each other. You may not need anything for the empty spots.
just my two cents.
Taj: My house is 2,064 square foot in size, add to that the deck which is 12 x 30 with a 20 ft ramp and that I have beds for cannas going from the back part of the house all the way round to the deck, around the deck and down the ramp on both sides and have 80 cannas planted, possibly should buy more cannas? I'm pulling weeds like crazy lately, I know that much.
joy112854
Joy that sounds very pretty. I am also making a canna bed in front of the house and I was wondering the samething. What to plant to make the bed a little fuller and that it would take full sun?
I might get a few liriope plants, Coleus, Pentas, and possbily a few ornamental grasses. I have a ton of gladiouls that I am going to grow in that bed also. I can't wait to hear what other suggestions people have.
They just had a fantastic Coop on Canna's. If you want to get a few more keep your eyes on the Coop section and/or Lowes. Lowes is selling rhisomes at pretty good prices I thought. You could also get beautiful gladiouls' bulbs there too and in Walmart. As matter fact they also have canna's at great prices.
Gardenia: I think it might have been Lowes that I bought my very first canna years ago, it was a red one with green leaves. Paid a pretty penny for it, but man did it take off. I fell in love with them then and still love them, just ordered about $50 worth from Easy to Grow for this Spring, the ones I don't have. LOL I will also get some from Jenny's I'm sure and of course, I'll be passing some of the old ones on to some friends of mine who don't have any. I had fallen in love with elephant ears but have been too timid to plant them as they become evasive here and are very hard to get rid of when you get them started, and can't have them taking over the canna beds.
joy112854
I got pkgs of 8 cannas for $7.98 and the gladiouls were 25 bulbs for $5.98 which I thought were a great price. I hope you post some pics once your beds take off. I know they are going to look beautiful. I can't wait to start mine in the spring.
If you dont mind me asking which ones did you order from Easy Bulb? I looked in their website and didnt see anything last week. I am going to have to check them out again. If I keep ordering them I am going to have enough cannas for half the block.
OMG talking about EE's mine just froze with last night's frost. I hope they come back as soon as it starts warming. I had to jump into a ditch to pull these babies out and took the chance of getting jumped by raccoons, spiders, and snakes. LOL!
Gardenia: Easy to grow has their ordering information for thier cannas for the Spring up now, and they have a huge selection too. Here is what I got coming: (remember you get 3 rhizomes per order usually and they aren't but about $7-$8 for 3.
Canna Lilies:
Journey's End
Tropical Sunrise
Lily Lanape
Maudie Malcom
Tangelo
Striped Beauty
The striped beauty and the Journey's End are both the prettiest I think, go check them out and I suggest if you want them you order pretty quickly before they run out. They don't charge your card til they ship in the Spring but you want to reserve your canna rhizomes now, Spring they will be all gone, trust me on this.
joy112854
I tend to agree with Taj. Cannas reproduce like rabbits. Give them enough sun and they can go from 3 to 9 in a pot in a month. I planted about 15 across the front of our garden last summer. They were spaced all nice and neat. Within a month the row was filled in and by the end of Fall it was a solid screen about three rows thick.
I understand you don't want to pull weeds, but those cannas might bogart the other plants right out of the beds. They will fill in your beds. I took two big 25 gal buckets and several boxes full of cannas that I had dug up to a RU last Fall. They just took over and had to be thinned out. I love them for their reproduction. They are one of my favs.
Joy I was in a coop this past week and bought 50 cannas in total including many of the ones you ordered too plus I have several of them growing from seeds and all the ones I bought from Lowes.
If they reproduce as fast as texasgrower says they do I am going to be in a lot of trouble because the last time I counted I had about 270 of them. Then again I have a very large area that I also need to cover so I hope they reproduce that fast. I will be able to fill out a few areas that are completely bare.
Texasgower I cannot believe you were able to get so many out of a few planted. Wow that is a heck of a lot of cannas. Do you have any pics of yours?
Hopefully once mine are settled in I will be able to share with everyone.
texasgrower is not kidding. I planted some here in the spring in a 4 foot bed (zone 6). When I dug them in the fall they had sent up and tripled their amount. You plant 1 rhizome with 2 eyes by fall I can dig same rhizome with 5 or six plants coming from it. That is a growing season from mid may to early october.
taj12
this is a pic of one of my canna beds last year.
Nope, no pics. If you put them where they get good sun or all sun and have good soil, they will take off. I put two in a pot this fall and stuck in the GH. I now have six coming up. They outgrow the pot in a hurry because they get fertilized and full sun in the summertime.
I also planted about 20 along a rock wall where they got morning sun only and clay soil. They spread, but not near as much, nor did they get very tall. The sun and soil are the key.
I ordered eight from the canna co-op. I know they will give me many more. I had to thin out the cannas last Oct. I must have given away 50 easily. Some were clumped together. Once those clumps were split they probably yielded another five plants each.
Have fun with them. They are very hardy temp wise and can take the sun even in our triple digit summers. Just be sure to water and throw some fertilizer at them every now and then.
Arlene, I lived in Lakeland back in the 70's. Both my kids were born there.
Taj wow that is great news I can't wait until mine begin to look like your bed. That is very pretty. Love your coleus too. Thanks for sharing your canna pic.
Texasgrower I definitely will enjoy them. I've been drooling over some pics they posted in another thread. They are so pretty.
It's so funny because I've met more people on DG that lived in FL than the people I actually know in Lakeland. LOL! What part of Lakeland did you live at? I am sure Lakeland has changed plenty since then. Have you ever been back?
I lived on a street called Peachtree in a small apt building. On Lori Ave in a house. I think on a street named Kingston or something like that in a duplex and in an apt complex that started with a "C" but can't remember it. It was a large complex. It's been too many years. We left there in 1980 to move to Tampa.
I haven't been back. After Tampa we moved to Okla. for four yrs then back to Fl in Englewood which is on the sw coast below Sarasota for nine yrs. Hurricane Charlie hit us in 2004 and the other three, Frances , Jeanne, Ivan brushed us. I'm sure you remember that season. I just couldn't live through that again. I thought I was literally going to die when Charlie hit. So we moved to Texas, but not tornado alley. Besides I've been through tornados, being born and raised in Amarillo Tx. They hit and run. They don't bear down on you for 24 hrs with winds that rip apart homes for hours and hours. I'm not down playing tornados by any means. They are just as deadly.
I got the Vanilla Ice and Fire Birds in the co-op. What did you get?
Taj:" Beautiful garden. I can hardly wait to spoil mine when I do the beds the way I'm going to, that should really make them take off from what I'm hearing here.
joy112854
Texasgrower I don't know much about Lakeland even though I've been here for a while. We moved to Lakeland from NYC so it was a long adjustment period then we could not get used to country living so we moved to Tampa and loved it. A year an half ago we came back to Lakeland and bought a house here. I guess I needed to be a little older in order to enjoy the advantages of country living.
Yes, I can remember that hurricane season very well. It was my first hurricane season here in FL. I can just imagine what you went through. That was a pretty bad year with hurricanes even though I hear Andrew was even worst but it was only one hurricane. If you lived near Sarasota then you must of heard of one of Books-A-Million's store that was a complete loss with Charlie. I used to work for them here in Lakeland and was on my way home on I-4 back to Tampa. Never, ever would I take such a stupid chance like that. My 4x4 was all over the road but TG I got home safe.
I totally understand about tornados too. I was in one when I was a child and it is also very frightning to experience. The sound as it gets closer is horrifying.
These are the ones I ordered from the coop:
Richard Wallace
Yellow King Humbert
Crimson Beauty
Orange Beauty
Lenape
Maudie Malcolm
Tangelo
Scarlet Wave
Primrose Yellow
Pretoria
I also got a few different ones from Walmart, Lowes and some seeds I had purchased of the Tropicals. I hope they all take off once I put them in the ground. I will take pics before and after and share them with everyone.
Gardenia: How to you get to the co-op to buy things? I always hear people talk about it, is that the marketplace? Or is it something different? I have bought off the marketplace before. I would like to see what cannas they have.
joy112854
Joy the canna coop is over but in the future if you go to Communities, Discussion forums and look under Dave's Garden Community you will find the coop thread. You can look in there daily to see what coops are active.
I hope this link works...
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/groupbuy/all/
If you look at the sitcky at the top of all threads it will explain to you how it works. Hope that helps.
Well have fun planting all those Arelene. When they start to bloom you will have a beautiful flush of color.
I already have five different kinds of cannas so I only really wanted white, thus the Vanilla Ice. I threw a few Fire Birds in there to help them get the fifty they needed. I love red.
I love country living. When I was younger I wanted the things city life offered. Now that i'm in my 50's I want the quiet and nature country offers.
Wow: I know where to get my cannas next time right?
joy112854
I really hope so Texasgrower. I can't wait until middle of March to start planting them. This weekend I am going to start preparing the bed in order to have it ready. I think the cannas from the coop are being mailed out towards the end of March which is perfect timing.
I love the Scarlett wave(Red). The pic Drapelady posted on thread was beautiful.
Joy even though you missed this coop you might want to check out Walmart, Lowes and Home Depot. I was in all three stores yesterday and came home with a bunch of Gladiouls bulbs. They still have the cannas too and they were not that expensive. I restrain myself from buying anymore of them because I think I have enough unless I find any others I dont have yet. Yes, I am a compulsive shopper. LOL!
I think our Wal Mart had three cannas to a pkg for $5. They had several kinds.
Gardenia: Yes, I just come home from Walmart, and yes, don't ask, I got some. LOL Couldn't resist of course.
joy112854
Joy...LMBO! So what did you get? TG I was in the store with hubby and he was rushing through the store like every husband does otherwise I would've came home with several bags. LOL!
Gardenia, mine are a variety, haven't planted them yet and my daughter insisted on a day lily, little does she know they don't do well in Florida in the sun, they wilt very easy.
joy112854
Texasgrower...so did you get any when you went to Walmart?
Joy I am not going to plant mine till the middle of March. I am afraid of another frost. This weather is so crazy lately I dont want to touch anything nor plant anything until we are safe.
Can you keep the daylily in a container? maybe that will give it a better chance. How old is your daughter?
Gardenia: She's 28 going on 16 I think. Can't walk into a store without her seeing something she wants too. LOL My Stuttgart and one of my Peach Gigantums is doing great; but, they are in the house in a south facing window, which they will lose soon, when it comes time to put my tomato and pepper startings there. I'm not planting any in the beds yet; it's way too early for that. I've decided when the ground is nice and warm, I will have my worker (as I call him), help me get all the weeds out, come in and we will take up all the canna lilies, I will divide them and then have him take the mantis and roto til in 1 part Spaghum peat moss and 1 part compost to 3 parts of the soil I have in the beds, then replant all the cannas; plus put in any of the new ones cept the Stuttgart, he is my house baby.
They will be happy and I will be happy then, I hope.
joy112854
That is so funny...28 going into 16 but boy can I relate to that. I have a 21 yr old and 17 yr old and it never fails when going into a store. They must come out with something even if it is gum. LOL!
You're going to think I am crazy. I bought four bunnies with the intension of breeding a few for manure. I hear their lil pellets are great for fertilizer. It sure is going to save me money and numerous trips to Lowes. I hope it works or I am going to be in a lot of trouble in a few months. LOL!
Well it sure sounds like we are all ready for Spring. Can't wait till it finally gets here. Where did you get your Stuggart from? That is another one I have on my list. Have you seen it online?
Gardenia: Long as you keep them out of the lettuce and carrots and stuff you might be ok? They eat their weight in veggies don't they? LOL
joy112854
Hi! zone 5 here...thinking of using canna's at center of big flower pot..have tropicana and the leaves are very pretty..what do you all think?? Most pots have spiky red grass or something else for center height..
Geraldine: Sounds terrific, a lot of people use the cannas as the center of their garden and then plant other flowers around it, I just plant cannas, and daffodils and now my new thing is Enchinacea plants and daisies. LOL Been looking at the hollyhocks with much interest too though and can't forget those shamrocks.
joy112854
I didn't get any at Wally World. I have enough with the 14 coming from the co-op and the kagillion I already have around the yard.
I have five pots with dwarf cannas growing in them. They are very impressive when in a pot. They quickly fill it in and when in bloom, ahh... sweetness. Pot away geraldine.
thanks Texas and Joy....will pot away!!