I generally grow cannas for their foliage, but the flowers on these are pretty nice too. They’re in containers this year (including a big, heavy concrete/hypertufa one I made last year to resist blowing over), but plan to put most of them in a bed next to the water garden next year where they should stay nice and wet without watering them every day or so.
I have a question…I created a canna bed for my mother…the cold has come and there are dead leaves…do I leave the plant alone for the winter (which is a little deceiving because we live in South Carolina and it is about 78 degrees today)…but do we leave the leaves alone or do we take them off? Any info you can give me would be appreciated.
Cannas are hardy to Zone 7 — min. winter temps ~0F. So you should be fine overwintering them in the ground in SC, which is mostly Zone 7 and 8.
See my ‘work’ website for more inso on hardiness zones:
http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/weather/zones.html