The trick to growing beautiful cannas in Phoenix

-

Yes, cannas grow great in Phoenix. Although most of them seem to look their best at the garden center and then just end up looking kind'a ratty in the garden. If yours looks kind'a ratty, don't despair. It just takes a few tricks. Here is what I've learned in the past few years:

• Plant them where they get as much shade, and water, as possible. Mine are planted near the house, where they get afternoon shade, and in an area that used to be so boggy that when I had grass there, it was a mess. Don't worry about over-watering cannas, you won't - they're practically water plants.

• Plant them in rich soil. Dig out the native soil, move it elsewhere, and fill with generous amounts of potting soil. Get the good stuff. Mix in as many bags of coffee grounds as you can get from your local Starbucks (it's free, just ask). My cannas have been in the ground for several years now, and the soil has that one thing that tells you that the soil is rich: worms.

• Fertilize them. Use dry fertilizer, water them with Miracle-Gro. I even use those ordinary houseplant spikes, which I get at the Dollar Store. And actually, if take a look at the photo, you can see where I really didn't do enough fertilizing, on the edges. Note that the middle area looks best. I gotta work on that!

And here is the most important part:

• Cut them back. Cut them back vigorously. Cut them back to the ground, especially the stalks that flower. In addition to snippers I have a small curved handsaw that I use to really get down low to cut the stalks. They're not difficult to cut, but they're too wide for ordinary hand snippers. Cut 'em back!

So there you go. Go ahead and plant those cannas. Plant them somewhere that you can get at them easily, so they won't look ratty. They'll add some great tropical foliage to your garden in the desert!

By the way, mine are from EasytoGrowBulbs.com

Brad draws custom cartoon illustrations for publications, blogs, presentations, anything you want. You can contact him at his website BradHallArt.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to tell if your cycad (sago palm) is alive or dead

-
Image
Cycads are strange plants. They're beautiful, and look like small palm trees, or large ferns. They grow very slowly, and can be very expensive, even common ones like "sago palms". But sago palms, in spite of their common name, aren't palms at all. They belong to a group of plants called cycads. They are wonderfully weird, and grow in strange ways. And sometimes they lose all of their leaves. Of course, if it were a palm tree that lost all of its leaves, you would know that the plant was dead. But it's not true of cycads. So don't dig that cycad up and throw it away! Not yet. If you've recently transplanted a cycad, and the leaves have all faded away, hang on. Take a look at the top center of the plant, at what I call "the pucker". There you will see some stubby, soft fronds, no more than an half-inch or so. At least that's what you should see. That means that the plant is still alive, and has dropped its leaves to focus on building r...
Read more

Rooting sago palm pups for more plants

-
Image
Once a sago palm ( cycas revoluta ) reaches a certain level of maturity, it starts to create pups. Like agaves, these are little plants that are exactly the same as the parent plant, only smaller. And yes, you can trim them off and grow them into new plants. This is how to do it. Cut them off from the parent plant with a sharp knife. If there are any roots at the bottom, try to save them, but chances are there won't be any. That's not a problem. The next step is rooting them. Douse the cut part and the bottom of the plant with some garden sulfur and some rooting hormone powder. Rooting hormone powder is pretty easy to find at your local Home Depot. I had to go to a real nursery to get garden sulfur. Anyway, the idea is to keep the little plant from rotting while giving it time to grow its own roots. Sago palm pups being rooted Bury them fairly deep in some free-draining mix. It should include volcanic pumice, if you can find it, and if not, you can use perlite. I ...
Read more

Growing sunflowers from Pennsylvania in Arizona

-
Image
It's October 21st, and I just received some sunflower seeds from a friend in Pennsylvania. Their season is ending and the season for planting here in Arizona is just beginning, and I'm kinda wondering if the seeds are wondering what's going on? It's spring again already? If you're new to the Phoenix, Arizona area, and are from back east it must seem kinda strange that fall and winter is our flower season, but it is. By springtime it will start to get so hot here that the flowers will die, and of course back east the season is just beginning.  Sunflowers growing in Peoria, Arizona, about a mile from where I live I've seen sunflowers blooming around my neighborhood of Glendale, which is a suburb of Phoenix, in the winter, and although I've never grown them I understand that they're easy to grow. I guess I'll find out - I learn best by doing! The seeds arrived safely, and it's my understanding that they were still connected to the spent flower (I do...
Read more