These plants are large, pointed at the tips, green or purple leaves. In summer, they grow quite long, often reaching two meters, flowering fleshy stems. There are several tubular flowers of bright red or yellow shades on them. They are collected in inflorescences of spicate form.
Kanna is a plant that is appreciated for its decorativeness, so the selection work was primarily aimed at increasing the color variation of the platelets of the leaf. Today, plants with different shades of leaves are known: from green to red with a bronze outflow. Leaflets can also be striped, dark purple and purple. I must say that the canaries are beautiful not only leaflets. The plants have amazing beauty flowers, they last long: flowering lasts from the first days of July until the frosts.
Kanna: variety.
The most famous variety of canna is Canna indica Roscoe or cannon Indian. It came from the west of India. The plant forms unbranched, leaf-covered stems. In height, they reach up to 90 cm. In canna leaves are light green, glossy, can be with red stripes. The flowers of the plant are tubular, red or bright pink. This species is the ancestor of several species of canna, which now stands out in a special form - S. x generalis Bailey, that is, Kanna garden.
There are also S. edulis or Canna edible. It is cultivated in southern Africa, Hawaii in order to obtain from its rhizomes starch.
Kanna: care.
Cultivation in the ground (open): features.
Kanna is a houseplant that looks great in flower beds. They, planted in groups in the middle of the flower bed, will become a real garden ornament. But they can be planted and one plant. Also, cannes are used for greening premises as pot and plant plants. The plant of canna looks great both on the terraces and on the balconies.
Kann should be planted in a bright, sunny, sheltered from cold winds, a place. The soil must be loose, well-treated. Watering the plant should be abundant. To make the cannes develop more splendidly, they can be made from organic fertilizers, for example, manure, the so-called "hot litter". Its thickness should be about 20 centimeters. From above it should be covered with a layer of earth (approximately, 25 cm). The heat produced by burnt manure affects the luxurious blossom of cannes very well.
In the soil, canna should be planted only when there is no longer any need to wait for frost. The distance between them should be about half a meter. For a year, canna develops from parts of the rhizomes, which were planted in the ground. The earth should contain peat, leaf earth, sand with large grains and humus.
Until the first shoots appeared, canna should be watered and fed with fertilizers a couple of times in 7 days. When the plant begins to blossom, it should be watered more abundantly. Flowers that have faded, it is necessary to break off. In the autumn days, when the leaves begin to fly, watering should be reduced, and then stopped altogether. For frosts, the plant should be bored, so that the root necks are not frozen. Otherwise, the plant may rot in winter. Where the climate is mild, rhizomes can not be excavated for the winter, in other areas they must be removed from the ground, dried a couple of days, cut off old leaves and close the rhizomes with peat (wet). Keep them at a temperature of about 10 degrees.
Canna in the room.
When the cold days come, the canna must be taken to a bright room, then they will continue to bloom for a long time. If you maintain a moderate watering had time to stand water, then the green plants will not lose throughout the winter. But the plant still needs a rest period - about two months. To ensure it, you need to limit watering and stop it altogether. Leaflets should be cut at 15 cm from their bases and transferred to a place with a temperature of about 10 degrees. During the winter, the lateral buds of rhizomes become mature and developed.
With the beginning of spring, the rhizomes should be planted in pots, and later transplanted in a larger container. Land for planting needs a loose and nutritious. The composition should include peat, leafy earth, humus.
Kanna: reproduction using rhizomes.
In the period from the last days of September to the beginning of October, when strong and long-term frosts are already expected, the canna must, so to say, be "cut out" from the ground along with the soil and carefully transferred to wintering, for example, in a dry cellar or under the greenhouse shelves.
But we must ensure that when watering in greenhouses, water does not fall on boxes with cannes. In moderate warmth and with diffuse light with a sufficient moisture level, the canna, or rather, their rhizomes, in an undisturbed coma of the earth calmly dormant. If the cat is destroyed, the rhizomes can dry up, and the young parts of the root - die off.
With the onset of March, the plant must be shaken off the ground, cut off the obsolete roots and share the rhizome, taking into account the freely detached processes. The youngest rootlets should be kept about 5 cm long. This will promote the best growth of rhizomes. When dividing the roots, the places where they are cut must be sprinkled with crushed coal and dried.
Parts of the rhizomes that have been separated, should be placed in a container with sand, which must be heated from below, and then well shed. Days through 10 rhizomes strongly grow roots, and on them buds and runaways will be formed. This is exactly the time when you can conduct another division of the rhizomes, which are greatly expanded, without harm to the plant. After that canna can be planted in pots.
Kanna: reproduction by means of seeds.
Cann fruit ripens. They must first be held in cold water, approximately, a day and carefully cut to facilitate germination. Before sowing seeds should be kept in the snow for a couple of hours, and then pelted with boiling water. They should be planted in containers, which have low sides with a light substrate. Containers are put in a place without the sun, where there will be a constant humidity and a temperature of about 24 degrees. The first two leaves can appear in 5 weeks, and in four months. Then each young plant is transplanted into a small pot, where the usual soil is poured. In the last days of May, canna should be transplanted into the ground.
Difficulties of cultivation.
This indoor plant does not tolerate cold, it must be protected from frost.
Canna can damage the scabbard, aphids and spider mites.