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Canna lily pictures

A few days ago I visited some friends.
As I entered their yard, my attention was immediately attracted by a tall stalk with a few striking colored blooms at the top.
At a first impulse I pulled quickly my camera from my purse but than I remembered that I should temper my passion for flower photos and say good day to my friends, first.

So, the plant with the gorgeous blossoms was a South American native Canna lily.
Canna lily macro
These are the colors from my camera, the real flower is not exactly so bright.
The orange blossoms appearing atop the tall stalk, look like a cross between a gladiolus and an oriental lily.
This canna is over 2 meters height. I can hardly reach its top but I was lucky again, I took the macro without looking on the LCD.
Canna lily
In the yard of my friends there is only one flowering canna plant but there are many baby cannas too.
The plant is borne out of a rhizomatous rootstock and seeds. First, the leaves grow out of a stem in a long narrow roll and then unfurl becoming large, paddle-shaped and veined, bright green foliage.
Canna lily foliage
Canna flowers begin to open in midsummer. The flower don't last for long but floral stalks continue to appear for months and continue flowering until the first frost of autumn.
Cannas, being semitropical, in autumn they will be lifted and stored indoors over the winter.
Yesterday's canna flower
After learning the lesson about how to grow Canna lilies, I concluded that our gladiolus - sword lily- is more beautiful with less trouble.
Gladiolus-sword lily

25 comments:

Mike B. @ slugyard.com said...

I like the ideas. Why not?

Tara said...

I too liked the idea..but I've missed a lot of weeks, so this is the first for this month. Have a great weekend!

Mylene said...

Hi Maia,

I don't think I can still wait for Mr. Linky. It is 12:30 am on this side of the world :D and my eyes are closing :D

Could you just do me a favor? Kindly include my entry when you enable Mr. Linky. Pleaseeee???
I'll promise to visit you again on Monday and visit the other entries too.

Have a great weekend. Thanks in advance.

Maia T said...

Mylene, you are so sweet. I'm sorry about the time shift, it is evening for me too.
Of course, I posted your link and thank you for the contribution.

Everyone
Probably, many of you go out on weekends and have no access to a computer or you are sleeping at that hour when the list starts.

Just post your entry and leave me a hint in a comment to be included and I'll take the url myself as soon as the list starts.
Don't put the links in the comment as the new comment moderation sends them to spam.
Than you can come back later to visit other participants.

Gemma Wiseman said...

Canna lilies are so bright! They are wonderful plants to grow in areas that can be a bit boggy! Not many plants like that situation but cannas thrive! Great photos!

Lui said...

Hi Maia!
I love your lilies and all the information you're giving. Thank you so much! I posted mine too! ;-)

I think the photo of the month gallery is a great idea and quite a challenge for one with an point and shoot camera like me ;-)

Maia T said...

Lui, all these photos are taken with a point and shoot camera and some of them are not so bad.
Actually, most of these cameras have great macro lenses.

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

My Sat is Friday for you. I shall go to Linky later.

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

My grand dad had lots of these canna, and he called them banana flower, and I often wonder why. Looking at your photos, I go the answer. The leaves look a bit like banana leaves. I have a small clump, the leaves are burgundy, but because I have not cared for it. the flowers are not impressive. It has become a miniature plant.

Al said...

Good day Maia, I go with your idea of posting a flower of the month or flowers for the month. It would motivate us more to capture flowers in macro and I think everybody would agree with that.

Okay about the Canna Lily, so that's what it's called, I have seen plenty of them in different colors and they look so attractive.

ShutterHappyJenn said...

I like the idea, too. :)

Rosie Nixon Fluerty said...

Exciting news Maia - I will get to posting my contribution for this week published very soon.

Canna lilies are lovely and some of the foliage can be ever so striking especially the red leafed varieties with the coloured stripes but its too cold here for them to flower much at all. Gladiolus bulbs on the otherhand are so much easier to get into flower and I've some that stay in the garden all through the winter. Thats a nice pastel pink one there in your photo.


Just to let everyone know that my camera is not an DSLR but is point to shoot with a macro 18x optical zoom.


Have a lovely weekend everyone :) Rosie

SquirrelQueen said...

I also like your ideas.

Love the canna lilies, the color is gorgeous.

~✽Mumsy✽~ said...

I like the idea too! Starting in the new month seems like a good idea..You'll have plenty of time for planning, and we will have to take more picture.

Maia T said...

Mumsy, I like your idea. Really, starting at the middle of the month doesn't make much sense.
Still I'm open to other ideas too.

Judy said...

I agree about doing the planning in what is left of August, and starting fresh in September. The ideas sound great, if you are willing to do the extra work!
I love the canna lilies! And the glads My favourite is the spent flower lying on the leaf! So poignant!!

Roan said...

Hi Maia,
I think having a photo of the month is a great idea. I vote for starting at the first of the month, though.

Love the canna lily. The orange is so bright it's no wonder it caught your eye.

Icy BC said...

I love the colors of these canna lilies! They are gorgeous..

Great idea about photo of the month, and whatever works for you is fine with me.

Jayne said...

Photo of the month sounds like a good idea. I'd make it simpler for yourself and just start at the beginning of September. That gives you the rest of this month to organize :-)
Lovely Canna, I love that color.

Jama said...

The Canna are so lovely. There's plenty of them here in Singapore, and bloom all year long as the canna thrive in our hot climate.

Anonymous said...

i love the idea of photo of the month...it's nice to have a gallery too, to showcase the work, sometimes it's sad to see these beautiful flowers disappear in old posts on blogs....and it would be nice just to give them the credit they deserve.

these are beautiful flowers...i just photographed the same plant but the flower was red last week, and of course i didn't know the name. the leaves are wonderful too...and like you i was so engrossed in trying to catch the flower and the light that i never looked down. i have to check myself too...once i nearly stopped in the middle of broadway at times square to catch some gorgeous purple flower....but i caught myself luckily...never got those flowers though.

Anonymous said...

i forgot to mention, i'm sorry about my web page loading so slowly...noones mentioned that before...so i don't know if it happens regularly. i've yet to find the perfect template with wp...when imoved my blog from blogger all the photos were large and there's only a handful that don't obscure in firefox. i really don't have the time to go back and format them all though.

Maia T said...

dancigmatilda, I'm sorry, I can't leave you a comment on your blog.
Something is very wrong with it, I've tried with both IE and Firefox and my whole system freezes.
The pictures are huge and they are flashing like crazy. I think these are the pictures from the header slideshow but they are one on the top of the other.
This happens only in the last two days, I never had problems with it before but the slideshow was not there either.
This is no Blogger or Wordpress thing.

Mylene said...

Both ideas are great! But can we just start from here :D Laziness is striking me to go over again with my previous links LOL!!!

Thank you so much for including my link. You are so sweet :)

Have a blessed week!

Unknown said...

I have always loved cannas! They come in such lovely colors too!

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