Canna x generalis arrived in cultivation as a hybrid somewhere between Canna indica and the broad-leaved C. iridiflora, but the plant has long since outgrown its origins to become its own thing: a symbol of high summer in temperate gardens, an echo of the tropics transplanted north. Growing to six feet in a single season, it builds rapidly from a buried rhizome into a column of overlapping leaves — often flushed bronze or deep copper — that rustle in the breeze with the satisfying weight of something substantial. The gold-toned flowers emerge in summer, brilliant and unfussy.

In warmer zones it can winter in the ground under a good mulch; elsewhere the rhizomes must come inside after frost, stored cool and dry until spring. This annual ritual of digging and storing is one of the pleasures of growing cannas — the rhizomes accumulate year after year, fat and multiplying, so that what began as a single clump becomes a colony. Spent flowers should be removed to keep new buds coming through summer. Plant in full sun and give it the richest, moistest soil you can manage; in return it will perform from midsummer until the first frost cuts it down.