A surprise in my garden

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My garden must have known I’d run out of things to write about so it sprang this surprise on me this morning. As we were leaving to go for a walk, I spotted this beautiful bloom. It’s a canna. I didn’t even know I had a canna! It would have come from one of the places we visited to buy pots and plants. My sister had some lovely cannas in some very pretty colours. Cannas sometimes have variegated leaves which is what this one has. There are ten species in the genus. Their closest relations include the gingers, bananas, heliconias and birds of paradise. Wikipedia says they are used in agriculture as a source of starch for human and animal consumption. I didn’t know that. Although originating in the tropics, the cultivars grow easily in most countries but they need 6-8 hours of sunlight in the summer and might need to be somewhere warm for the winter. Mine will be getting plenty of sunlight at the moment. You can see that the creepers on the wall are getting established too.