Canna Tropicana

I’ve been growing Cannas in my garden for the last five years. I guess you could say I’ve been growing them ever since I started my garden.

I enjoy their large tropical leaves and lovely flowers. Once they grow enough to start blooming each summer they usually don’t stop until the weather begins to cool substantially in late September or early October.

I should mention that I grow my cannas in pots so that I can easily move them indoors in the winter. The pots are placed directly into my garden beds in late spring or early summer to grow among the many other plants.

As the weather begins to cool in the fall I bring my many cannas into my enclosed back porch. I spray them using a spray bottle with a few drops of liquid detergent added to the water to help remove any bugs that have hung on to the plants. Then I let my cannas slowly die down and go dormant.

Once the cannas are dormant I bring them indoors and keep them in my basement in a cool fairly dark place. Of course I bring the cannas indoors if the outdoor temperatures drop too low before the cannas have gone dormant. When that happens I just let them finish going dormant in the cool dark basement.

I’d say that the cannas are always in our basement by early November each year. There they will stay until the temperatures warm enough to place them in the back porch once more, and then outdoors. This means that they are usually kept indoors until the end of April or so.

While the cannas are in the basement I check on them periodically and give them a small watering every three to four weeks. I can assess the health of the tubers when I check on them, and keep them alive yet in a dormant state by only watering them when they are very dry.

Around mid-February each year I move the cannas closer to one of the basement windows so that they can get some filtered light. I also begin to water them approximately every two weeks.

They quickly come out of dormancy and begin to grow new leaves.

At this time, three of the five cannas that I have in my basement have a fair number of leaves. They might have started growing faster this year! Two are still dormant and I’m hoping that they will come out of dormancy soon.

Most people that grow cannas in cool climates either buy new tubers each year, or dig the tubers up in the fall and store them in sawdust or a dry substrate for the winter. They are stored in a cool dry place.

I tried that method during my first year of gardening and lost all of my cannas! The following year I began my little experiment of growing them in pots and bringing the pots indoors just as I’ve described above. I’ve successfully kept the cannas alive each year with this method and I’m quite happy to continue using this technique.

Now that the canna leaves are beginning to grow I know that Spring can’t be too far off. Within a month or less my crocus’ will be coming up in the lawn, and other spring bulbs such as tulips will be starting to awaken and grow. I can’t wait.

How do you over-winter your exotic plants? I’d love to hear if you have any interesting methods.

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