Sometimes your garden can look full of plants but not full of color.
One plant that easily adds many flowers of various colors to your garden is the canna.
Examples of some cannas include the Yellow King Humbert, Canna Vestarae which is a new variety, the Stuttgart, the Jarhondarh and the Odinrae to name just a few.
Try purchasing say five to ten of these canna plants from your local nursery or garden shop.
Pricing is reasonable as a small potted plant will cost between $8 and $15 depending on the size of the plant.
I have personally planted white, yellow, orange, red and pink types of canna plants in alternating patterns and they look terrific.
A hidden bonus is the ability to divide these plants once they have finished growing into even more plants.
An adult plant establishes itself in only 6 months.
This can then be divided into maybe 12 more plants in just that short amount of growing time.
Generally, when the summer growing period has finished, and winter starts, the canna stops flowering.
Now is a great time to cut back the plant to ground level and divide the plant.
Make sure you have some bulb or roots for the new plant to establish itself in its new location.
I usually mulch right over the top of all the cannas so they do not even appear to live in the garden bed.
In a few short weeks, they appear like small bean shoots displaying healthy green leaves and bursting with strong growth.
Normally within a couple of months the cannas are back flowering again.
For general maintenance, once a month I prune old leaves off the flowers stems which only takes a couple of minutes per plant.
Once a year I fertilize and mulch the garden.
This is performed just before the summer growing months and is easier when the plants are small in the garden beds.
You will need to water the cannas once a week if there is not rainfall as they love a good watering.
A healthy canna plant can have ten or more flowers blooming.
Note that they are not the best plants for cutting and placing in a vase as they do not last long, but for the purpose of enriching the color in your garden they are hard to beat.
One plant that easily adds many flowers of various colors to your garden is the canna.
Examples of some cannas include the Yellow King Humbert, Canna Vestarae which is a new variety, the Stuttgart, the Jarhondarh and the Odinrae to name just a few.
Try purchasing say five to ten of these canna plants from your local nursery or garden shop.
Pricing is reasonable as a small potted plant will cost between $8 and $15 depending on the size of the plant.
I have personally planted white, yellow, orange, red and pink types of canna plants in alternating patterns and they look terrific.
A hidden bonus is the ability to divide these plants once they have finished growing into even more plants.
An adult plant establishes itself in only 6 months.
This can then be divided into maybe 12 more plants in just that short amount of growing time.
Generally, when the summer growing period has finished, and winter starts, the canna stops flowering.
Now is a great time to cut back the plant to ground level and divide the plant.
Make sure you have some bulb or roots for the new plant to establish itself in its new location.
I usually mulch right over the top of all the cannas so they do not even appear to live in the garden bed.
In a few short weeks, they appear like small bean shoots displaying healthy green leaves and bursting with strong growth.
Normally within a couple of months the cannas are back flowering again.
For general maintenance, once a month I prune old leaves off the flowers stems which only takes a couple of minutes per plant.
Once a year I fertilize and mulch the garden.
This is performed just before the summer growing months and is easier when the plants are small in the garden beds.
You will need to water the cannas once a week if there is not rainfall as they love a good watering.
A healthy canna plant can have ten or more flowers blooming.
Note that they are not the best plants for cutting and placing in a vase as they do not last long, but for the purpose of enriching the color in your garden they are hard to beat.