Not sure what this is...

[SOB]

We moved into a new house a year and a half ago. This plant popped up late this summer and we don't know what it is. Is it from a bird dropping some seed? Is it something the previous owner had planted that we thought we cut back and is now growing again? Is it something my wife planted and forgot she planted it (a strong possibility)? Any help is appreciated! I tried searching but have no clue how to start to describe this one.

Thanks!

[applestar]

I don't grow them so I'm not sure, but does it look like canna? But could it have survived winter? Maybe because of the milder winters we had two years running?

[SOB]

Interesting...I just wonder how it got there? There was nothing growing until about two months ago.

[rainbowgardener]

Something your wife planted and then forgot?

It does look like canna lily. Usually cannas are planted as tubers. But it is a flowering plant and does produce seeds. The seeds are pretty big and heavy and don't blow around in the wind. They can be dispersed by birds. The seeds have the durable outer coating that is adapted to passing through a gut.

If it was planted as a seed, whether by your wife or naturally, that explains why it isn't blooming -- they don't bloom until at least the second year from seed. But if it was planted as a tuber, but not planted until a couple months ago, that also would explain why it isn't blooming. Usually the tubers would be planted in spring after the ground warms up.

Cannas are a tropical to semi-tropical plant. It doesn't survive the winter north of zone 7 and it looks like you might be zone 5. So it wouldn't be something anyone else planted in a previous year.

[SOB]

OH! It just dawned on me that this past spring our neighbor brought over a bucket full of bearded irises that she dug up the previous year. Is there a possibility that one of these cannas got mixed in and survived the winter in the garage? Would it have taken this long to emerge? The irises have been growing all year...

That's the only thing we planted this year. Unless the birds planted it for us!

[rainbowgardener]

Yes, assuming it didn't freeze inside your garage, it could have survived. If temps in the garage got below freezing very much, I wouldn't expect it to survive, unless it was well insulated inside the bucket (wrapped, buried, etc).

Here's an article about how to store your canna, if you want to keep this one for next year:

http://home.howstuffworks.com/how-to-st ... -bulbs.htm

If it got planted in the spring, I wouldn't expect it to take so long to sprout, but that partly depends on how dried out it got in storage, how deep it was planted, etc. I suppose stranger things have happened!

A bird is still a possibility, but chances of that are higher if your neighbors have some cannas.

[SOB]

Sounds easy enough. Guess we’ll give it a try! Thanks!