You can plant small bright tropical plants and ferns with your canna lilies. Just make sure that the plants you are planting are working to glorify the canna lilies and the overall beauty of your garden.
But finding proper companions for these tropical flowers can be a bit confusing. There are a lot of options, and randomly selecting some won’t give you the aesthetic output that you hope to see.
But don’t worry, because, in this guide, we will go through in-depth details on what to plant with canna lilies, some potential companions, and design ideas. You can adapt, find a few common issues and their solutions, and more.
Some Potential Companion for Canna Lilies
To understand what you should plant with your canna lilies, it is important that you find out the size of your canna lilies first. As mentioned earlier, canna lilies can be in three different sizes tall, medium, and small. Tall and medium is most common, but you can find small ones too.
Do keep in mind you want to show off your canna lilies as much as possible. So you will need to find companions that will provide more depth and divert focus to the massive & beautiful paddle-like leaves of canna lilies. Azucena can be a good option as it’s from the
Along with that, canna lilies will be around four to six feet tall if you are going with the tall and medium options. So, to complement all these factors, you can go with ornamental grasses along with a few asparagus ferns.
To bring out the colors, you can go with small but colorful bush-like flowers and plants with lush and beautiful multicolored leaves, or you can go with tropical green plants that can work too.
Based on this information, some great potential companion canna lilies can be the following:
Impatiens
Scientific Name: Impatiens scapiflora
Classifications:
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Ericales
Family: Balsaminaceae
Genus: Impatiens L.
When it comes down to canna lilies, you can’t go wrong with impatiens. These small flowers will bring cheer and brightness to any part of your garden. We recommend you grow them around canna lilies for maximum beautification effect.
Begonias
Scientific Name: Begonia obliqua
Classifications:
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Cucurbitales
Family: Begoniaceae
Genus: Begonia L.
Begonias are bush-like tropical houseplants that can add color to even the darkest part of any garden. They bring out the beauty of canna lilies and go well with any variant of the plant. We suggest you pick wax begonias or angel wing begonias with canna lilies.
Caladiums
Scientific Name: Caladium schomburgkii
Classifications:
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Alismatales
Family: Araceae
Subfamily: Aroideae
Tribe: Caladieae
Genus: Caladium
Canna lilies and caladiums are a great combo that can go with small plants like impatiens or begonias. The multicolored heart-shaped leaves of the plant will bring more depth and beauty to your garden than no other plant can.
If you want to add color to your canna lilies garden, then they are arguably one of the best choices out there.
Elephant Ears
Scientific Name: Colocasia esculenta
Classifications:
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Alismatales
Family: Araceae
Subfamily: Aroideae
Tribe: Colocasieae
Genus: Colocasia
Now, if you don’t want to go with multi-colored leaves but instead want to enjoy a green bliss, then elephant ears are the best complimentary plant for canna lilies. Their leaves are more sought after than their flowers, but the flowers can add that bit of depth that brings up the aesthetic level to a higher plane.
Knockout Roses
Scientific Name: Rosa Knock Out
Classifications:
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Rosales
Family: Rosaceae
Genus: Rosa
Species: R. Knock Out
For bright red color and its other variants, you can’t go wrong with knockout roses. They are easy to grow and maintain. And when they properly bloom, their fragrance & beauty combined with canna lilies are unmatchable.
Creative Design Ideas for Incorporating Canna Lilies into Your Garden
Now that you have an understanding of what types of companions you should get for your canna lilies, let’s take a look at some design ideas that you can opt for:
Play with Bright Colors
If you are building a tropical garden with canna lilies, then you must go with a bright color option. Mixing up different colors will certainly be pleasing to them, and the boldness will bring the best out of your canna lilies.
One thing that you should keep in mind is not to pick colors that overpower your canna lilies. Otherwise, you won’t be able to showcase your beautiful canna lilies in your garden.
Mixing Different Heights
For this type of design, you should go with tall canna lilies. You can also make it more interesting by going with different colors and sizes of canna lilies. For example, tall red canna lilies with medium blue canna lilies.
You should pick companions of different sizes as well. But make sure they are not taller than your tallest canna lilies as it will be disturbing to look at.
Water Beds
Some variants of canna lilies grow extremely well with water beds, and you can add them to your garden to bring that tropical vibe. The water bed will be the biggest attraction, and other plants and flowers should complement it.
Dramatic Foliage
For a tropical feel, large leaves are a great addition. And canna lilies look best with green and multicolored leaves together. Elephant ears are the best if you want the lush green feel. But if you plan on multicolor, caladiums can be a great option.
Use Containers
You can also plant your flowers and canna lilies in containers and mix them up together. For small gardens, this design works the best as you can utilize the height of canna lilies to bring out the beauty while not wasting any space.
And there you have it; these are some ideas that you can incorporate into your garden. Do keep in mind that you can always mix a few ideas together and get a better output than just going with a single design.
Common Issues with Canna Lilies and How to Solve Them
The most common issues of canna lilies are:
- Pest Infections
- Leaf rollers, slugs & snails, aphids
- Diseases
- Botrytis blight spotted wilt virus & mosaic viruses
- Soil Drainage & Water Retention Issues
- Not having the right soil type and irregular watering
To solve these problems, you can do the following:
Use insect and pest control sprays. The amount and the number of times you should use it depends on the type & size of your garden.
Keeping the garden healthy will counter most diseases but if you spot early signs of any disease, get rid of that plant immediately before it starts to spread.
Check the soil drainage capability and if you don’t meet the requirements for your garden, change the soil immediately or change the type of plants that you are using with your canna lilies.
Lack of proper fertilization can also be the reason behind the mentioned issues. Grooming and pruning can also stop the spread of insects and diseases.
Should You Propagate Canna Lilies from Seed or Rhizomes?
You can propagate your canna lilies from seeds or rhizomes. But in our opinion, we prefer propagating with seeds rather than rhizomes. But it ultimately comes down to your decision and which route you want to take.
The advantage with rhizomes is that you will get an exact replica of the parent plant. So, if you have picked a bold and healthy canna lily then you can be sure of the fact that you will get the same canna lily after propagating.
On the other hand, seeds are the byproduct of two canna lilies. So, if you are getting seeds from two healthy and beautiful canna lilies then you will have both of their features and a completely new plant after propagating.
This method is also safe and requires no additional work rather than planting the seeds. That’s why we prefer propagating with seeds over rhizomes. It is safer and offers more versatility.
But if you want to go old school, then you can always go with propagating with rhizomes option.