Thursday, October 28, 2010

Orange Canna Lily


Orange Canna Lily
Canna x generalis
(KAN-uh) (jen-er-RAY-liss)


This Canna was brightening up the urban environment down in Manhattan. I know a lot of people don’t like orange flowers but ones like this that rejoice in their orangeness are hard to not like. Orange flowers for me are okay and it took me a long time to learn to appreciate them.

We only grew a few Cannas in containers this year after swearing off them for a couple of seasons. They did great and still look nice. None of that nasty brown on the leaves. They are a very structural plant that I like mainly for the foliage. The flowers are just a nice bonus when they come along. The newer varieties seem to be self cleaning so the old flowers don’t make a mess of the plants. I think that next year a few more Cannas are warranted by the performance of this years small crop. We are already trying to plan the garden for next spring. I might try and change the small rose garden in front of the house into an annual/perennial more seasonal type of planting. The roses are nice when they are on but look bad for a good part of the year.

1 comment:

lotusleaf said...

I agree with you about the rose plants.Most of the year they look ungainly, but when they are in flower, they make up for everything.Cannas are quite invasive here.