Monday, February 13, 2012

Canna Flowers: after the flower falls off, do you trim off the hard seed pods?

Yes. Flowers do three things-- produce roots, produce leaves and produce flowers in order to re-produce ( seeds). If you want more blooms, remove the seed head. If you want the seeds to plant more cannas-- let it stay until it's throughly dry-- then remove and plant if you are interested in what will come of those seeds. This is a long term project tho.

The seeds pull nutrients from the bulb leading to smaller blooms in future seasons of bloom.

good luck

Canna Flowers: after the flower falls off, do you trim off the hard seed pods?
You can to encourage more flowers. You can also let the seed pod mature, save the seeds, plant them elsewhere. Your choice.
Reply:You are supposed to cut the dead flower off. This encourages more flowering.
Reply:Whether at the start of the season, or at the end, if you let Cannas produce seed, you will end up with less flowers as a result - either this year or next.



If you fancy more Cannas, they're really simple if you divide when they're dormant, or just coming into growth.



In some colder areas they need to be protected or lifted during winter, which makes division easy. Otherwise, get a couple of forks and make a single clump into several. They easily recover - especially if you enrich their growing spot with some organic material.



Otherwise, to keep your plants flowering as prolifically as possible, I would purchase seeds, if I fancied growing some new babies. This would allow you to get a wider range of colors, heights etc.
Reply:My friend gave me 3 canna roots about 2-3 years ago and now I have probably a hundred or more....no joke. I have never done anything to them. I have never dead-headed, trimmed back, removed seeds, etc....I do pick up all the dead leaves in the spring from the previous year and that's pretty much it.. Mine multiply all on their own and produce flowers all summer long. As a matter of fact...they grow too well. I can't get rid of mine. I have given away half of them and still wound up with twice as many. I wouldn't fuss too much if I was you....they'll do just fine on their own.


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