Canna flower beds?

what type of flowers would can I plant in a flower bed with cannas? or shoud I plant cannas by their self?

Canna flower beds?
I love canna. I plant spiderwort near them. the orange of the canna looks good with the blue spiderwort. I use the Kiss Me Kate variety with TropicCanna.
Reply:Cannas don't need to planted by themselves. I was very impressed with a large clump of blue flowering agapanthas planted next to tropicanna cannas in my garden this year (an accidental compination) The red leaves and the blue flowers worked great together. If your have any of the red leafed cannas, grey plants like artemisia grow well with them and give you a great colour contrast.





I never touch my cannas till the end of summer when I remove the spent flower heads. After the frost have gone over them and killed the leaves I chop the whole plant to 6".





Don't as advised remove the flower heads after they have flowered once. The stalk of the flower head hides many flower buds waiting to come out and one stalk can have many flowers over the months.
Reply:They take up quite a good amount of space both above and below the ground, but other than that they should be just fine in your garden (if you have the room).
Reply:You can plant cannas by themselves if you like. And shorter plants around them if you choose.





But have you noticed that nobody plants cannas with other plants round them? The reason is that when the canna plant has flowered, that plant doesn't produce any more flowers. It has to be cut close to the roots and removed.





Usually, the gardener would cut away the flower stalk of this plant if the colour has faded and the blooms are discoloured and ugly. The plant is left standing with nice green leaves. A short period of some weeks later, side shoots come out from the base of this plant, using the food stored in the plant. The plant now begins to look tired and the leaves are not at their best. This is the time to cut away the whole plant at the base, leaving nice young plants coming up in its place.





The plant you have removed can be chopped up and either put in a compost heap or ploughed back around the base of the new plants so that it can fertilise the new plants.





For this reason I hate planting cannas. Let other people grow them and I can enjoy them at a distance. Just give me a tree that keeps producing flowers by branching away merrily. All I have to do is sweep away dead flowers and mixing these with the soil around the roots of the tree.