Friday, September 21, 2018

My Canna and Povel Wallander


[I'm sneaking one more summer garden post in before the calendar says Autumn is here tomorrow.] 

What possible link could my canna have with Povel Wallander?



Are there any Wallander fans out there? I watched it years ago and am now enjoying it all over again on Netflix.

Povel is the father of Kurt Wallander, played by Sir Kenneth Branagh, once married to Emma Thompson who he left for...wait, this is not a gossip blog so I'll get back to Povel and my canna.

Did you recognize David Warner, above, as Bob Cratchit in my favorite version of A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott as Scrooge? 

What is your favorite version? We'll be watching it soon, won't we?

David Warner has that marvelous craggy face that I'm sure any Star Trek fans will recognize--I had to throw that in for my Trekkie sons. 

And in the Swedish drama Wallander, he plays an important artist in declining health who is not on very good terms with his policeman son.

And every single picture Povel paints is the same scene of the rocky wooded coastline of Sweden where he lives.

Every single painting.

And now we come to my canna, the canna musifolia bulb (or is it called a rhizome?) that I ordered from 
Horn Canna Farm, a family farm in Carnegie, OK. 

RH planted it for me in a favorite heavy old concrete pot from the old house that had lost its bottom. It is beautifully aged, much as Povel's face is, and is sunk into the ground in the butterfly garden.



I've taken hundreds of pictures of this canna because I wanted it so badly. RH is prejudiced against cannas. He won't admit that but I know he is. Many people are, maybe remembering them planted in the middle of old tractor tires out in a farm yard. To me they always said, This is a farmhouse and so there must be cannas.

While a baby, my canna had to be protected from BreeBree jumping into it in her obsessive desire to catch a chipmunk, but it grew...



And grew until RH began to be fond of it too.



Finally it flowered...



Okay, the flowers aren't what sell cannas but the hummingbirds do love them.



We took pictures of it from every angle...



It put on more and more stalks...



Soon RH got used to me yelling to grab the camera and go get pictures of my canna, the light is just right.



I mean, is this plant not gorgeous with the sun shining through its bronze leaves?



This brown-eyed Susan has been a beautiful companion on one side, even though mostly finished blooming by now, the seeds drawing goldfinches.



And this Autumn Joy sedum has been a nice contrast on the other side. It's beginning to pink up for Autumn. [The plant is much more rosy now as I wrote this post a week ago.]The deer keep our other three Autumn Joy plants nibbled to the ground in our front garden but they can't get to this one.




I'm tagging my other canna lover...

                    Carla from The River 

before I close with a quote about cannas from a beloved book by Richardson Wright that stays on my bed table, The Gardener's Bed-Book.


Give a dog a bad name, and he may eventually retrieve his reputation, but let a flower suffer the sneers of the gardening cognoscenti, and all the fine hybrids of it that some faithful soul may create will flower to little advantage. Cannas are a case in point. Mention them, and across the mind flashes unlovely memories of dreary park, prison and hospital flower beds. For years the Canna was an institutional flower, and that's enough to damn any plant. Yet some very beautiful hybrids have been created and at the sight of them we waxed ecstatic over their subtle pinks and yellows. They have ceased being institutional.
Richardson Wright
The Gardener's Bed-Book
1929


 What about you? How do you feel about cannas? Or if not cannas, is there a plant that you just would not have in your garden?

if you've never loved cannas planted in the ground, have you ever thought about putting them in pots?

I keep imagining how magnificent two of these would be in large urns on either side of a path leading somewhere. What do you think?

And let me know if you want to see more pictures of my gorgeous canna that adds a vertical feature to our garden. 

Just like Povel Wallander, I have a million of them.




Hey, sweet readers, thank you so much for visiting me here at the Window! And thank you so much for your thoughtful and kind comments on my previous post about our darling granddaughters. 

You are the best!


"And what would life be like
if we paid one another no compliments?"
wonders Isabel in
The Careful Use of Compliments
by Alexander McCall Smith





23 comments:

  1. There are people who hate cannas?? Seriously?? LOl no way!!? I happen to love them, always have. We have the identical ones you have, now in full bloom. I enjoy them alot. I do so want a few of the yellow ones though, and hope to have them someday.I'm not sure, but I think my post today actually had a canna in it, ha ha LOL, pretty neat, here we are both thinking about cannas. It's still summer here, are there any signs of Fall your way?

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  2. I learn so much from fellow bloggers!
    Your post had me running to me good friend, Google!
    Canna.... not sure what it was. But I learned quickly! Beautiful plant, easy to start in doors, Hummingbirds like, grows huge, etc.
    WALLANDER?? Nope, haven’t seen it.
    But just like the Canna, I’m looking it up.
    Great job on educating me!

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  3. Dewena, Your knowledge has my head spinning. LOL. My favorite Christmas Carol is the Albert Finney one. I love the Thank you very much number. LOL. My girls know every word of that whole show. Wow, what a plant. The tallest I have seen. Someone has a green thumb. :):) Blessings, xoxo, Susie

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  4. Dewena, I'm not too familiar with the Canna plant, but I love the fact that the Hummingbird is attracted to it. What a pretty picture of the sun shining through the leaves. That old concrete pot is very unique and charming. Your brown-eyed Susan's are lovely and an interesting flower. It's almost like they are cheerfully smiling at us. I thought that face looked familiar. Do you know I haven't seen the whole movie of A Christmas Carol, only parts of it? I really should watch the whole movie this Christmas.

    Enjoy your Canna plant as long as you can, Dewena. Autumn is on its way. : )

    love, ~Sheri

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  5. I love the texture of the leaves, and I think they would make good specimens for ‘concrete’ leaves, don’t you? I’m on the fence about if I would want them in my garden. I think I need a look see in person. Sometimes it’s hard to tell from a photo, although you’re right about how pretty they look with the sun shining on them from that angle.

    xxx

    P.S. Just got back an hour ago. What would have normally taken 2.5 hours took 9 🙄

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  6. oh I'm so glad Doreen is back safely!
    and as to cannas... oh my. yours are just beautiful! so huge!
    and the light through the leaves is glorious.
    we had them around our patio in Tulsa. well... Broken Arrow. which is like a suburb of the City. they were my Grandad's favorite plant. I had remembered my mother telling me that. so I decided I wanted them just because of Grandad! and I never regretted it. :) XOXO

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  7. Cannas remind me of the years we spent living in jungle in Ecuador. They grew all over the place there, tall and in a multitude of leaf colours. I have never seen them up here, perhaps it's too cold. The photo with the light glowing through the canna leaf is gorgeous. Like what you like and don't worry about it. I'm glad your husband has come alongside!

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  8. and I forgot to mention your cute boyfriend watering the canna! he's just adorable! maybe it's just a man's plant! they seem to like it. LOL

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  9. You have groomed the Canna plant beautifully and it does give your garden some character. The sun shining on this plant is gorgeous. Love Bree Bree next to this plant in the picture. So sweet. Happy Weekend.
    Kris

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  10. I suppose someone I know has cannas... but they are a plant that I haven't had much contact with. Those leaves are truly worth admiring and photographing from every angle, in the ever-changing light. It's nice to see your husband smiling so approvingly :-)

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  11. I loved Wallander as well, both the books and the series, I'd love to see it again. I still remember that first image of the first episode - a field full of sunflowers, it was amazing. I quite like cannas as well, I tend towards sturdy plants, not the best of gardeners :-)
    Amalia
    xo

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  12. Dewena, your cannas are beautiful with the yellows and purples and green ribs showing through the leaves. I have always thought they were majestic plants. When I was growing up we had tall ones growing in Texas, and around ye olde outhouse in the 50s in Alabama, and then orange and gold ones in two of our back yards in upstate SC. I really like them myself. Take a rainy day in the spring and loosen the soil around them with a tiny shovel. Pull up the stalk right out of the soil with almost no effort. Then loosen the soil where you want to start more cannas and stick the stalk down in the loosened soil. Since its raining, no need to water them. Never fertilized them. They just grow and grow until frost. Next spring, you have beautiful vibrant plants! Have many times shared cannas with neighbors and friends.

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  13. We just binge-watched the Wallander series with Kenneth Branagh. Enjoyed it very much although the ending was kind of bittersweet. I've never heard of a canna, but I've seen them before. I wonder if they're a little like hostas, easy growing and not much care needed. Gotta like that! My SIL's favorite Christmas Carol is the muppet one. I just saw it last year . . . hmmm, maybe you have to grow up with that one to appreciate it! xo Deborah

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  14. I have never grown cannas and don't remember seeing many of them around here...but now that I am informed I will probably see them going and coming----you know, kind of like when you get a different car and realize that half the people on the road are driving YOUR car?! lol I think YOUR canna is definitely camera worthy!
    I am going to look that series up on Netflix. I have never watched it. xo Diana

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  15. I love cannas - I think they're beautiful. You rarely see them around here in northwest IL. A neighbor down the road has them in front of their house, but they're the only ones I've seen.

    As for the show, Wallander that you mentioned, I've never heard of it. But then again, I'm not much of a TV watcher.

    Have a beautiful week, my dear friend. I hope it's cooling down a bit for you!

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  16. I'm a terrible gardener, I don't have a green thumb, but I love flowers and I love looking at everyone else's pretties. Your cannas is really gorgeous. And I love that it attracts hummingbirds.

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  17. How gorgeous is this plant?! I've seen them on the island, and have admired their pretty veining, sturdy strength and impressive height, all hearty elements, but did not know what they were called, until now.

    Your canna, my dear Dewena, is thriving so beautifully; I am thinking that maybe, just maybe, RH has been whispering sweet nothings to it, every time he waters it, trying to make up for maybe judging it before he really got to know it! Your pics are amazing, and I'm certain, do it justice!

    I've never heard of the Wallander series, but then again, I haven't watched television in over 4 years.

    Wishing you a lovely rest of the week.

    xoxo
    Poppy

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  18. :-) Yay! I love the photos. Well done capturing the beauty with the sunlight.
    We had a hummingbird family this summer. It was a real treat to watch them at the canna.

    I wanted to share with you my Molly passed, here is the post I did .. still very raw inside .. try not to think about it too much .. no matter how you prepare, she was 13 1/2 and I knew the time would come it still is hard to adjust.

    http://theriverflowing.blogspot.com/2018/09/she-gave-us-one-last-story.html

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  19. Your canna is doing so well and I think the photograph with the light glowing through the leaf is just wonderful.

    Wallander is a great series.

    All the best Jan

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  20. The canna is gorgeous!! I love it! I don't believe it would ever survive this Texas heat! I've barely survived it...LOL. I haven't seen this series but will have to look it up. I loved that version of A Christmas Carol, but believe it or not, the Disney version has become my favorite. My second favorite is the 1938 version with Gene Lockhart and my third favorite version is the one from 1951 with Alastair Sim...oh, and we really love Scrooged...LOL. Are you sorry you asked??!! Love and hugs to you sweet friend!

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  21. Just beautiful! I planted a canna in a pot for the first time this year, and it grew and grew, and flowered over and over. It's still going strong, but tonight's frost may put an end to it. I'm thinking of bringing it indoors, and seeing what happens.

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  22. Your Canna is beautiful and I LOVED watching Wallender on Netflix.

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