Get  in the zone – the tropical zone, that is – with a Tropicanna^® giveaway!

The following guest post is by Genevieve Schmidt, the landscaper and garden writer in charge of www.NorthCoastGardening.com, a site dedicated to gardening in the Pacific Northwest. Her own garden is full of hardy, low-care tropicals, and she can't wait for her new Tropicannas to add to the show!

Get  in the zone – the tropical zone, that is – with a Tropicanna^® giveaway!

by Genevieve Schmidt

I’ll admit it: I’m in zonal denial. While my zone 9 growing conditions are envy-inspiring to my cold-climate friends, there are so very many tropicals that I lust after in books, but can’t grow myself. Angel’s trumpet, bird of paradise, bananas …

So when I heard about the Tropicanna line of cannas, with the brilliantly colored foliage and the cheerful tropical blooms, I was sold! The huge leaves look so vibrant and lush next to my other plants, and they bring a jungle-like look to my low-maintenance garden.

(Editors note): Schmidt loves this image of the original Tropicanna canna in front of a blue garden wall.

I’ve long used cannas as a landscaping plant here in zone 9 – they’re even good for commercial landscapes in zones 7-11, because they need little care, have few pests and look beautiful for a long season.

Genevieve Schmidt of NorthCoastGardening.com and Amy Stewart (right) of the Garden Rant blog, planting Tropicanna canna rhizomes in containers. Both gardeners are huge fans of Tropicanna cannas' psychedelically colored foliage.

If you live in a colder clime, you can easily grow them in a pot and bring them inside over the winter. They look great with the “thrillers, fillers and spillers” planting scheme of using one boldly upright thriller (the Tropicanna), adding bushy annuals or flowering perennial fillers for color, and using a trailing plant as a spiller to soften the strong lines of your container.

If you’re as excited about Tropicanna cannas as I am, head on over to North  Coast Gardening and Garden Rant this week and enter for your chance to win one of five mixed sets of Tropicanna rhizomes. You can watch Amy and me plant them in a local artist’s garden, and imagine where you’ll put your Tropicannas.