Canna 'Italia'

A medium sized Italian Group cultivar; green foliage, oval shaped, upright habit; triangular stems, coloured green; panicles of flowers are open, self-coloured yellow, throat cardinal-red, staminodes are large, edges frilled, labellum is red, stamen is yellow with a wide red margin, style is red, petals red with farina, fully self-cleaning; seed is sterile, pollen is low fertile; rhizomes are long and thin, coloured white and purple; tillering is average.

Introduced by C. Sprenger, Dammann & Co., Naples, Italy, EU in 1894. Announced along with C. 'Austria' in 1894, these two new cultivars caused a sensation at that time, producing much larger flowers than the Crozy Group had been capable of producing. It is a seedling of Canna 'Madame Crozy' x C. flaccida.

Planting outdoors

The 10 day weather prediction for Worcester shows no frosts in the immediate future, but it still has to be too early to commit the collection to the vagaries of the weather Gods.