Albert's Greenhouse

The tropical planting trend of the last few years has produced a marvelous resurgence of canna ( or more coloquially, the plantain lily ). While just a few years ago, there were just red, pink and yellow varieties of canna readily available at your local garden center, various leaf shapes, colors and patterns, some of which are really bright and ... dare I say it ... gaudy, have come on the market.

I grow just one canna. It's a species Canna indica that I grew from a hard, round seed many years ago. I had to sand the seedcoat down to get it to germinate, but the plant flowered in its first year.

Canna is also called "Indian Shot", because it's from tropical Asia, and because the seeds are so round and hard that they reportedly can be loaded into shotgun shells with some modicum of success.

My canna may not have the showy flowers and wide tropical looking leaves that the modern varieties have, but it has the advantage of having a story and some time behind it. Though it looks rather scraggly after surviving a cold and dark winter, by summertime, it will be green and flowering with the best of them.