Canna lily is a large red, pink or yellow flowering plant. Their natural beauty always attracts us to look at them for a long time. Great, if you have a colorful canna lily garden.
Canna lily is easy to grow, easy to care for, and maintains a long blooming period. So many gardeners love to grow this flower in a pot or the garden as an ornamental plant.
This plant prefers the warm temperatures of the tropics. So they usually flower in the summer months. However, one of the issues that many people are concerned about is prolonging the blooming period of canna lily.
How to keep cannas blooming all seasons. How to enjoy large flowers with vibrant colors even in autumn? Learn about ways to keep flowers blooming longer after the growing season.
How To Keep Cannas Blooming All Seasons – 7 Important Notes
There are many ways that you can keep canna lily bloom for a long time such as pruning, fertilizing, adequate watering, maintaining sunlight, improving soil, or using fertilizer to stimulate flowering.
Here are 7 ways that can help you maintain the bloom time of canna lily longer.
1. Regular pruning
Canna lily needs regular pruning of leaves, flowers, and branches throughout the growing season of fall and summer. Each stem can grow up to 3 flower spikes if you prune them properly.
Regular pruning will help this plant to stimulate growth and produce new flower spikes. So it will prolong the flowering time of this plant after summer.
Use a clean and disinfected pair of scissors to avoid damaging the branches and attacking bacteria. When a flowering branch has bloomed, the petals turn brown and fall off, you can cut them off.
Removing old and dead flower stems will help the plant grow new flowers. From there, plants can save energy and focus on new flowers. This process can be repeated again to stimulate the appearance of a third flower spike.
After every 2 weeks, you need to check if the old flower branches show signs of damage and change color to conduct pruning. If you don’t prune, the plant’s energy will continue to nourish the damaged flowers, so it won’t be able to grow new flowers.
2. Fully watered
During the summer months, when the temperature is high, water becomes an important factor in sustaining the canna lily. They will need more water during drought days because of the rapid evaporation of water.
You need to test the moisture in the soil before watering to make sure to water when the plants need it. You should not overwater because waterlogging will cause the root system to rot and damage.
Watering deeply and infrequently will stimulate the growth of bulbs and roots that will penetrate deep into the soil to absorb water. Canna lily will only keep flowers for a long time if they are given enough water.
3. Make sure you get enough sunlight
As you know, the canna lily is a plant that loves sunlight every day. This plant needs at least 6 to 8 hours of light per day and can live in partial shade.
Light will help plants grow quickly, produce more flowers, and maintain them for a long time. If there is a lack of sunlight, canna lily will not be able to grow well because photosynthesis is prevented, from which the plant cannot bloom and reach its maximum size.
Even the lack of sunlight makes the color of the flower become lighter. So, if you’re growing canna lilies in pots, move them to a location that gets plenty of suns every day.
If you grow this plant in the ground, avoid planting it near old trees, hedges, or areas with little sunlight.
4. Fertilize chicken pellets in early spring
In order for plants to grow and develop quickly at the start of the growing season, you should fertilize canna lily with chicken pellets. This will give the plant enough energy to produce more flowers in the summer.
Only when the bulbs and stems have enough nutrients and energy will they produce leaves and flowers that are big and colorful. So as soon as you plant them in early spring, fertilize them to stimulate the growth of new bulbs and stems.
You only need to fertilize once with high nitrogen content in early spring for the canna lily to absorb and grow. Excessive use of fertilizers with high nitrogen content will cause this plant to produce more leaves and fewer flowers due to the energy released into the leaves.
5. Root division every 2-3 years
The root system of canna lily will develop in bunches with tubers of different sizes. So, in 2 to 3 years, you dig them up and divide them into small clumps and replant them.
This will help prevent the tubers from becoming overcrowded and affecting the growth of the stem. After separating them into small clumps, you should replant them at a distance of at least 10 inches each to create the space needed for the plants to flower during the growing season.
The large space will help the tubers absorb more nutrients and water, thereby nurturing the taller and larger stems. These stems will produce large, brightly colored flowers.
6. Improve the soil regularly, avoid waterlogging
Canna lily needs a lot of water every day to grow and nourish the entire leaves, flowers, and stems. However, over-watering and making the soil waterlogged will create favorable conditions for fungal growth.
Soil needs to be well-drained and to be cultivated regularly to remove harmful bacteria and promote beneficial microorganisms. Regular soil improvement helps prevent waterlogging and stimulates root growth.
The soil is too sticky and pressed tightly against the bulbs, they will not be able to grow and increase in size quickly. If you grow canna lily in a pot, you should change the potting soil every 2-3 years to stimulate root growth.
Growing canna lily in the garden, make sure to loosen the soil surface, drain, and clean the bushes to avoid insect attacks.
Read more: How To Tell If Canna Bulbs Are Dead (Simple Way To Know)
7. Use fertilizers to promote flower growth
To increase the number and duration of canna lily blooms after the growing season, you can use fertilizers to stimulate flowering. For any plant, growth will begin to slow down as it goes through the growing season.
Therefore, to stimulate flowering, use specialized fertilizers to stimulate blooms and keep flowers fresh longer.
In addition, the flowers of canna lily are also very susceptible to being crushed or damaged by the negative effects of the weather. Therefore, you need a canopy or protective net to avoid strong winds or hail.
Summary
Canna lily can flower more often and for longer with regular pruning. Each stem branch can grow 3 flower branches if you prune them properly. After the first flower branch shows signs of wilting and falling, you need to cut it off to stimulate the plant to grow new branches.
You can do the same thing the 2nd time to get 3 flowers on a new stem. To keep canna lily blooming more, you also need to water regularly, fertilize, improve the soil, and maintain light, and flower growth stimulants.
From 2-3 years you should dig up all the roots and divide them into small clusters and replant them. This will give the bulbs plenty of room to grow and nurture healthy stems. From there, they will have large and brightly colored flowers.