Chris,

I've answered a few people's questions in this forum by pointing out that Canna are related to Gingers, Heliconias, Bananas and in particular, Strelitzia or Bird of Paradise. They even look a lot like the Orange Bird of Paradise in terms of leaf and stem structure and seeds look identical except Strelitzia Renginae seeds have orange feathery tufts on them. Canna are NOT true lillies and do not belong to the Lilly family.

Both Canna and Streletzia are perfectly comfortable clumping close together and therefore, it is a matter of taste how much space you give them. Eventually, they will fill in the gaps between them naturally and you'll need to thin them out again. I do this with my Strelitzia Reginae now to spread them all over the property. Right now, I inherited a small group of them in one area and have spread them by division to other areas on the property.

When my Canna get going, I'll do the same with them.

Thank you, very good (and welcome!) information. I'll let them do their thing and see how things look like when they're bigger. I'm glad to hear that they are not aversely affected by close quarters.

C.

They'll be fine. The good news is you get to dig them up this fall, so if you think they look to close space them out next spring.

Here is a picture of the original clump of Strelitzia Reginae ( Orange Bird of Paradise ) from which I sourced by division, enough chunks of rhizome to spread the plants further around the property ...

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Notice how similar Strelitzia looks compared to Canna?

The orignal source of my rhizomes had been beaten down by the big January Freeze, that just occured this past winter, but they all came back. They probably won't flower again for a couple years as Bird of Paradise need time to mature before flowering.

The following garden strip contains, European Fan Palms, Cycads, Australian Tree Ferns, Cut Leaf Philodendrons, California Poppies and Strelitzia transplants from that original source. The most recent additions, just yesterday, are Douglas Iris along the front edge - another clumping plant with rhizomes.

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;)

I'm laughing at myself. I suddenly have the feeling that my Strelitzia aren't Strelitzia. They look so much like Canna that I think that I've mis-identified what I inherited here and they ARE Canna. Well one or two are about to flower and that'll settle any doubt. But the pics I'm seeing on the web of Strelitzia Reginae don't look like what I got here.

Ha. Ha. What a dumb futz I may well be.

chris ont, your cannas look like musafolia aka "banana canna". I have these cannas, but mine have red on the rib up the center of the leaves. They also make clusters of small red flowers that attract hummingbirds. I let mine form a huge clump over about 5 yrs with no problems.

Strelitzia leaves are arranged in a different way. This picture demonstrates it very clearly:
http://photodatabase.une.edu.au/albums/incoming/2006/ABSTRACTS/normal_Strelitzia%20reginae.JPG

Sometimes, being naive forgives being a dump futz. It is all new to me this backyard botanist stuff. Don't know how I got to beleing those were Strelitzia. I guess they look enough alike that when I saw them at the local home improvement store 'Home Depot', the similarity and my desire to believe I had one overrode distinction.

Even better, I do have Strelitzia Nikolai, the Giant or White Bird of Paradise.

So OK, I went out and bought a Strelitzia Reginae to make sure I had one and that I would never again mistake Canna for Strelitzia, even if they are in the same family.

What kind of Canna do I have?

Don't know yet, but one is about to flower and the parts of the opening bud look yellow. I'll post pictures later when it gets fully bloomed.

I promised a picture of the Canna Bloom and here we go ...

Pre Bloom:

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Pre Bloom Close-Up:

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Post Bloom:

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Post Bloom Close-Up:

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So, does anybody know what kind of Canna I have?

And the answer is ...

Canna Flacida, the Golden or Yellow Canna

Pretty flowers - showy for a species Canna. I love the speckles. More info here:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/37147/index.html

More interesting still is that Canna Flacida is not a hybrid or garden Canna ( Canna x Generalis ) which comes in several varietals.

Canna Flacida is apparently a native Canna from the Southeast coastal areas of the USA, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

After a whole year of growing Canna and spreading them, I think I can provide a better answer to this question now.

I have observed that Canna bloom rather randomly, one plant blooming while another is not. They do not all bloom at once.

I imagine that if you plant your Canna by breaking them up and regimenting them separately, into some geometrical pattern, that it just won't look cohesive because of the randomness of each separate plant's blooming. Therefore, I have found even greater reason to prefer allowing Canna to clump thickly. The random blooms that appear in clumps stand a better chance of having separate clumps showing blooms continuously and the randomness of blooms on individual plants is lost in the overall presentation of clumps or clusters of Canna.

Mind you, that my current clumps of Canna are not yet thickly established and so, all through the season it has been odd to watch a bloom here, have it deteriorate, followed by another bloom somewhere else, in a rather haphazard fire-works like fashion. I personally, will strive to thicken up my Canna now so that each clump stands a chance of having continuous blooms all season long. And that means, letting the Canna grow thickly in groups and solid bars or lines along walls and fences.

I find Canna an good answer to a problem I wanted to solve earlier in the year, finding flowing plants that will grow in shade. Canna do well in shade and unlike many plants that need sunlight to flower, Canna will flower in Shade or Sun. But because of the randomness of their flowering, I think I'll try to supplement them with some other flowing plants that can find harmony growing in close proximity to the spreading rhizomes of Canna. In that way something is flowering virtually ALL THE TIME. I just don't know what that other flowering plant will be yet as it also, must do well in shade or part shade and be a ground cover type of thing.

IMHO