Cannas in Australian drought

Correspondance from Raelene of Canpelkni Blooms, Australia

Following fires threatening her parents’ home, Raelene at Canpelkni Blooms confirmed that their own Cannas are OK. She stated that “I’m constantly amazed at how drought tolerant they are; they just keep flowering although most aren’t as tall as in earlier years, and they just need more water. I’m still carting it outside from two showers, still collecting the water from the bowl under sink, table wiping and the kids half cups of drunk water etc., I salvage it all, and at least I’m getting good upper body strength, lol!”

“I now have a 90,000 gallon water tank set up and another 5,000 litre tank that’s full but has to be joined up to the big one, and we got 3 inches of rain about 2 months ago. It half filled the big tank and overflowed the smaller one. I’ve watered my cannas with it 3 times, they all got a quick overhead watering at the end of the three days in a row of 43+ degrees Celsius that we had about two weeks ago. It pepped them up. As part of our routine, plants on trial get the laundry grey water, these are taller and lush, how a Canna should be, with the 43 deg heat they didn’t even get a blade of leaf scorch. However other parts of my garden are only bucket watered, and these are still flowering and received about 30 percent leaf scorch. Plants that were on trial for identification that I've already got don’t get any water, unless it’s from the skies. Fence line cannas get nothing, and as a result they’re starting to look a bit tatty now, even though they are still flowering.”

“Some seedlings I planted about a month ago popped open its first flower today, the plant is just over a foot tall, another two are sending up the flower stem and these are even shorter at approx 20 cms, stress does wonderful things, these I water fairly regularly say a 10 litre bucket twice a week, still getting a few double stems etc, have a pic of a double header, this I haven’t seen here before, with those 3 hot days it never had chance to open its double head, as it as on the corner of a row and not high on the list for giving water too.”

“Yesterday we got about 20 drops of rain, seriously it was nothing, its gone before it lands-for these plants those 3 hot days we had sucked the moisture from them and left them dry and crispy, the only green you could see was a half foot of the lower stems, these have now recovered and are growing again and showing the odd flowers, I still haven’t watered them, but I do need to trim and tidy them up.”

“I don’t have enough water to grow them all to perfection, but they are thriving very well compared to last summer, and parts of my garden that are established would survive on natural rainfall alone, well certainly the fence line cannas do, these are all a minimum of 1.2 metres in height so they reach the top wire height. Some are that dry they only reach about 50 cms and of course they’re always flowering but the quality and size of the bloom is restricted. They are well mulched and when I dig them to post sales orders they are dry, yet have perfect white healthy roots and rhizomes. That recent 3 inches of rain didn’t even get down through the mulch.”

“About 4 years ago, before the water restrictions came in, you could stand tall and be hidden by the Cannas, but now I have to squat so my 3 kids don’t find me when I want some quiet time, lol.”

“I simply love all my cannas, I don’t know what else would give me so much colour and joy in our dry conditions; our cow paddocks are back to dust, once again even the weeds have turned yellow and gone to a better place. The drought that we have now has come much later compared to last summer, and that is probably why they have coped so well compared to then.”

“Betta go, empty some buckets out then shower. Things will improve but not this summer, for next summer I'll start watering early spring from the tank and re-mulch and they will be better off over the summer. The pictures above were all taken on 7th Jan this year, not the tallest for height, but they were perfect beautiful plants... take care.”

Raelene, Victoria State, Australia

Canpelkni Blooms

That was the year that was - Malcolm

As we reach the end of the year, full of memories, some good and some bad, we can look forward with anticipation to what the next year will bring us. Gardening attracts those of a philosophical nature, and now that the winter solstice is past and the days are now starting to lengthen again we can start planning next years garden.

La Rochelle in France, harbour and promenade

But we should not forget the lessons we have learnt from the dreadful weather suffered in Europe this summer. Global warming means a turbulent weather pattern, with each year being different from the last. The summer flooding, with clouds everyday, meant that our Cannas were deprived of much light and although they rallied in the autumn, it was still the worst year for Canna that we have experienced. However, we were lucky compared with many others, who had their plant stock destroyed.

This year we did not need to store water, but at Claines Canna we are still proceeding with installing a large storage tank at the highest point of the garden complemented by some small pumps to transfer rain water into the tank. The day will arrive when we will be in severe drought, and with the rapidly changing weather patterns that could be 2008.

A holiday in France meant we came back with many more Canna specimens, again!

Next year we have the International Canna Trials to look forward to, links at the foot of this article, and our thanks to all who have supported Keith, Christine and us in this effort, which will enhance the growing of Cannas considerably.

Canna 'Roi Humbert', grown for 100 years at the Nantes Park Department, France.

Finally, Margaret and I would like to thank all of our Canna friends for their continual kindnesses, sharing their gardening treasures and advice. The Canna world is still small, so let us all look forward with tolerance to enjoying our Canna friendships in 2008. May you all have a very happy and prosperous new year, and we look forward to seeing you at the Canna Trials in 2008.

Margaret and Malcolm Dalebö



Why not visit the Canna Trials in 2008?

The Effects of Drought on Cannas

The Canna blooming season has well and truly arrived in the southern hemisphere. At least it has where Cannas are receiving any water. The southern half of Australia is still in the grip of an eleven year drought, the worst in our history and it is only recently that the northern tropical and subtropical climes have started to have their summer rains after several below average rainfall seasons.

Here in the southern half of the country most towns are on severe garden watering restrictions after the winter and spring rains failed completely. Farmers dependent on summer irrigation to milk cows, grow crops and produce fruit, have had their "guaranteed" irrigation water allocations slashed. Normally they have 100% allocation plus another 100% excess water sales. Ensuring an effective buffer against our sweltering, dry summers. Most will only receive 10% allocation, no excess water sales and some areas will have zero allocations apart from stock and domestic supplies which will at least water their livestock. The stock will have to be hand fed very expensive grain and hay in place of lush pastures.

Last summer my Canna collection had to subsist on recycled water from shower and washing machine. We were not allowed to use any clean water outside the house. This spring, restrictions have, at the moment, been eased a little to allow watering of garden beds (no lawns allowed) twice weekly for one hour per day. This can only be done using a hand held hose. In a garden so crammed with plants as mine, this means that each bed is lucky if it receives a splash of water once every two weeks. Although it is the last month of spring, the temperatures are soaring and more like those of mid summer.

How are the cannas faring? Surprisingly they are still alive. Last season the severe lack of water saw them only reaching about 30% of their normal height. Prolonged flowering was much reduced due to lack of increase of the rhizomes.

The foliage this season is showing signs of stress although it was okay last season apart from the leaves being smaller. Foliage on those 100 or so overwintered in the ground at our old property is better than that of those living in luxury in their new environment. These 300 cultivars were moved to our new property and planted in early winter. The first leaves of these are also showing horrible streaked and blotched foliage but the most recent leaves are unfurling fresh and clean. Flowers do not seem to be affected and the first blooms look wonderful. A plentiful water supply was the primary motivation for the move and cannas growing on the new property have received a thorough weekly soaking. They went into stockbeds lavishly enriched with well rotted cow manure. Consequently they are at least two months ahead in development compared with the poor old 100 still languishing in their old home. These later are looking very parched and only just unfurling their first and second leaves, but the streaking and blotching is nowhere near as obvious as those already transferred. The sooner we have them all settled into their new stockbeds with lots of water available and some of the most productive soils in Australia to dine upon, the better. This reinforces my belief that the most optimum time to divide and move cannas is when they are in full growth.

The delay in completing the transfers of the last 100 cultivars before the growing season commenced has, in part, been due to the fact that these particular rhizomes had not been lifted for three years. Consequently a lot of them had "walked" away from their name stakes and cuddled up amidst neighbouring cultivars. Until they showed some leaves, it was very difficult to find who had walked where. Indeed, it was difficult to determine even if a cultivar had survived the cumulative abuse of the past few years until they poked their noses up out of the ground. I grow my cannas in mixed plots with other shrubs, grasses and perennials and was loathe to plow up whole beds looking for them. We still have to put the house up for sale and a backyard of fallow dirt is not a good look. Remaining perennials should soon cover the bare spots where cannas are removed providing we don't completely devastate them. As soon as we have a cool spell these laggards will join the rest of the collection. I can't face lifting and bagging cannas and then replanting in temperature hovering around 38 degrees C. The cannas will not mind the heat, but I will.

The most noticeable effect on the cannas from such draconian treatment is that the amount of rhizomes have dwindled alarmingly. Where once there was a clump one metre in diameter containing a potential forty or fifty divisions, there is now only one or two skinny, undernourished rhizomes left alive. This is not the case for all, but the majority have dwindled. Surprisingly we have only lost two cultivars completely. Apparently unaffected by the drought are 'Pennsylvania' and ancient 'Guttermanii'. No two cannas could be more unalike. C. x 'Pennsylvania' is a big, red Wintzer raised triploid and C x 'Guttermanii' (syn. 'Sparks' in USA) is one of the very early Année French hybrids circa late 1840s.

C. x 'Pennsylvania' (left).

C x 'Guttermanii' (below)

The most devastated canna in the collection was one obtained from the old Bendigo Canna Collection. It long ago lost its identity and is either another of the very early French hybrids or a species Canna. I nicknamed it "The Bendigo Banana" because of its close resemblance to a Musa. It has never flowered for me and cannot be identified until it does. The foliage is a pale, lettuce green, poised on long, arching pedicels. The long leaves, have prominent, close veins, undulate margins and fold downwards. In windy weather these split and look just like Musa foliage. One small clump of this has completely died. The other much larger clump is reduced to just two small knobs of rhizome. Fortunately it is bouncing away in its new home but for a few weeks I thought it was caput. No doubt that this lack of rhizome stamina is due to the peculiar rhizomes the plant produces. It does not tiller like other cannas. Each leaf stalk arises from an individual small conical knob. I believe this to be the only plant left in the world of this cultivar. Supposing of course that it proves to be an early hybrid and not a species. On the right, you can see the peculiar rhizomes.