Cannas are pretty amazing plants. You can see them growing in the medians of some of our roads. They certainly are not getting a lot of watering. On the other hand they will grow in bog ponds, or even in ponds themselves. I have them beside my bog but the do get watered regularly, and are doing well. However, no flowers yet. I'm still waiting. Lucky you!

Congrats on your visitor! May it be the first of many!Check out the Hummingbird forum to find out what else attracts them. They do seem to like the Cannas with smaller, species type flowers. I'm growing some Robert Kemps this year for them. I'm finding out, like you, that the Cannas grow best with lots of sun and water.

Mimibite hummingbirds are the very reason I bought my first cannas yesterday. Now I am just having a fit to plant them. The first hummers have been reported coming this way. Three have been seen in Lousianna. I saw my first one on March 22, 2004. Can't wait for them to show up here. I plan to have so new food for them.

I usually hang around the Hummingbird Garden Forum and when I saw pictures of hummers at cannas I thought I would give them a try.

Minibite,

Where did you order from? You actually were fortunate if attracting hummers was your goal. They generally avoid the gaudy hybrid flower types of the canns you mentioned. The smaller flowered type you got is preferred by hummers.

Bob

I have a red indica that atracts them cause of the smaller flowers,but they don't go for my pretoria or florence vaughn.I was told there is more nector in the smaller ones,they also set seeds.

Bob,
I ordered the following cannas on-line from Paradise Garden: Red King Humbert, Wyoming, Pretoria, Pink President, and City of Portland. For some reason, they didn't look exactly like the pictures to me, but perhaps because I'm a novice with these plants.

Actually, I fell in love with the plant first, then quite by accident, and much to my suprise I noticed that I was getting hummers. Yes, the humming birds had no interest in the lovely large flowering ones, but stuck to the smaller long-throated flowers. (Note I said 'lovely' as apposed to gaudy-just MHO)

Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough last year to label what I pulled up, so I'm going to have to just plant them and see what comes up.

I've posted the link below if you're interested, but I'm afraid to order more due to the large number of tubers you wind up with from just one at the end of the season. What are you growing this year?

Janine

Here is a link that might be useful: Paradise Garden