By Leslie Cox
Special for the Record
Have you heard the latest? October has a new nickname: Hotober. It definitely fits. With continued record high temperatures, it has certainly been an unprecedented October.
Being able to enjoy outdoor activities later in the fall has been a plus, but also a concern. The extreme drought conditions and fire risk are truly dire.
The drought hasn’t been kind to our gardens either, mostly due to extended watering restrictions, but there are a few surprises.
A walk through our garden reveals roses still in bloom, sweet pea flowers smelling divine, the blue of Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’ (monkshood) flowers looking richer than ever and my geranium ‘Ann Folkard’ still in bloom of flowers with new buds still coming!
Not to be overlooked, the plants in my new terraced garden: Heliopsis helianthoides ‘Bleeding Heart’ (perennial sunflower), Rudbeckia hirta ‘Cherry Brandy’ and ‘Autumn Colors’ (Black-eyed Susans), Chelone lyonia ‘Tiny Tortuga’ (tortoise head) and Agastache ‘Mango Tango’ (anise hyssop): they still have a lot of flowers.
But I have to admit that the queen of tiered beds has to be my Cannova x generalis ‘Bronze Orange’. About 1.2m (four feet) tall, the showy deep orange flowers rising on branching stems above the dark bronze foliage are sure to add a tropical look to this area of the garden. I’m glad I didn’t listen to my internal warning bell as I considered not buying this lovely new addition to the canna lily line. The reason for the hesitation was that cannas are not winter hardy in our garden. Like dahlias, canna tubers should be overwintered indoors.
Several years ago, we had a large selection of tender perennials in our garden…some cannas, numerous dahlias, brugmansia, lots of scented and zonal geraniums, a few begonias, and an ultra-scented lemon verbena. Eventually it got to the point that the extra work of getting all these tender plants ready for winter storage and trying to find suitable indoor storage space was just too much. Basically we switched to other plant species that are less demanding for our growing area. Or so I thought.
We kept a border plant in the garden…pineapple lily, Eucomis comosa. Then we added Eucomis bicolor ‘Sparkling Burgundy’, the dark leaf species. A few years later, I came across the dwarf pineapple lily, ‘Leia’, which is in the Aloha series. I was hooked. Addiction came back and a couple more euchomias, a begonia and some zonal pelargoniums were added. And then this year’s new canna, as I said.
Now I’m hoping for a light frost to hit our garden. Getting closer as we dropped to 2.5C overnight on a clear night. Once the leaves on the canna plant start to wilt from a light frost, I’ll dig it up, cut the foliage back to about five centimeters (two inches), clean the soil off the tuber, air-dry it for five centimeters seven days and store it in animal bedding shavings in a container or paper bag.
I will do the same with my pineapple lily bulbs, but let the foliage dry naturally on the bulb and then remove it. Once the bulbs have dried a bit, I give them a gentle rub with my hands to remove any excess dirt. They are placed in shavings in their own labeled containers so the bulbs don’t get mixed up. Both eucomis and cannes should be stored at 10 C (50 F) and checked periodically for deterioration.
I guess I can handle the extra work for the pleasure of their exotic flowers next summer.
Leslie Cox is co-owner of Growing Concern Cottage Garden in Black Creek. Her website is at www.duchessofdirt.ca
Gardening of the Comox Valley