From “Over the Horizon” in The Origin of Plants by Maggie-Campbell Culver:
“Rather like the African Marigold, which was seen growing wild along the coast of north Africa, so Indian Shot eventually naturalised itself in Spain and Portugal. This was found to be Canna indica and was an early introduction from the West Indies towards the end of the 1560s. It may have attracted attention when Spain was earlier castanetting itself through Central America between 1511 and about 1530. The genus has about 50 species in the family of Cannaceae and is spread over tropical South and Central America and also Asia….
“When it was introduced into Britain it was considered a great rarity and it was some time before anyone understood how to cultivate it. The plant feels most comfortable growing on forest margins in moist open forest areas, but seems to be domestically quite adaptable. The word Canna comes from the Greek for ‘reed’, and indica is because of its connection with the West Indies. All the species, and now the hybrids, carry the most spectacularly coloured flowers and give a zing to any garden….
“A number of the Canna species were introduced during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but they were always considered specialist plants, until the idea was developed in France of using subtropical and tropical plants for summer splendour. This was pounced upon by gardeners in Britain and is a style of summer bedding still used in much municipal planting today. A mass of them blooming together looks rather like a flock of exotic parrots, and their exuberance at least cheers up what may be an otherwise dull summer.”
From “Houston Heights” by Janet Lowery in Texas in Poetry 2, edited by Billy Bob Hill:
I have decided not to forget these little houses,
these tiny cottages, these small frames of brick
and clapboard and stone, these roofs of silvery
shingle and green tile. I have decided not to forget
the pastel colors of the jaunty homes: mauve
and peach, sage and lavender, pale pink
and bleached periwinkle blue. Nor the smooth
scallops of gingerbread peaks, the fresh white
trim of picket fences, nor the spiked tips
of black iron gates, the neatly groomed lawns
and beds of bright flowers: pink candy impatiens
and frothy azaleas, velvet-mouthed pansies, lace
periwinkle, crepe canna lilies, the ragged lips
of scarlet hibiscus, pots of pink begonias, pots
of marigolds, pots of geraniums and portulaca….
I have decided not to forget these tiny side streets
tunneling toward the tracks, the wide boulevards,
the neat avenues and cracked sidewalks. Here,
on the notebook page, I will remember everything….
Hello!
This is the first of two posts featuring Canna Lilies from my garden, photos of three giant-leafed beauties called “Cannova Yellow.” These Cannas are in large pots in my courtyard, where they’re happy to be the center of attention and get just the right amount of sunlight and shade. I usually swap them out for new varieties each year, though I did recently learn that you can dig them up, store them indoors, and repot them after winter’s end. Here in the Southeast, those in the ground tend to return on their own; but those in pots — like mine — often get frozen out, so maybe I’ll try this over-wintering trick just to see what happens.
I went looking for Cannas with red or orange flowers early in the spring, but came across these yellow ones, whose colors I really liked. They bloomed in two distinct cycles — one around the middle of May and one around the middle of June — each bloom lasting a couple of weeks. July’s growth seemed to hint at a third set of blooms; but as is often the case with Cannas, what looked like emerging flower shoots turned out to be new leaves. Leaves are cool though too!
This post shows the blooms from May, and the photos progress from first buds through larger blossoms, followed by tall columns of overlapping flowers at the end. I especially like the swatches of orange you can see on some of the biggest flower petals, that look like someone took a brush and dabbed them with orange paint to create some alternating color and texture.
The Canna’s flower structure tends to be very complex, usually asymmetrical — and that combined with their large size can make them challenging to photograph well. These yellows, though, seemed to present more compact, balanced proportions than varieties I’ve previously owned. See, for example, my post from last year — Canna Lily ‘Cannova Orange Shades’ — which shows how even at the earliest blooming state, those Orange Shades were more asymmetrical than these, with large flowers popping at the end of longer stems, stems that then curved and randomly folded away from the flower’s center as they aged. The individual petals on these yellow ones remained mostly upright, by contrast, until they lost their grips and flew away.
Thanks for taking a look!
