Transplant Garden — Rare and Curious Plants

Kanna Flowers: A Quick Look

January 1, 2025

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One of my favorite things about growing kanna is seeing it bloom. The whole plant is gorgeous, but when you get to see a healthy adult plant light up with a few dozen flowers, it is a magical sight.

In addition to just being beautiful, seeing a kanna flower is a good indicator that your plant is happy. If you get a nice bloom, take note of how you have been treating your kanna lately. Where your plants are positioned, how often they are being watered, what soil composition are they living in, what temperature are they experiencing, how much sunlight are they getting? All are good things to take note of when you notice blooms. If you don’t have a plant notebook to write these things down in, I recommend you start one. Journaling and collecting data points are great ways to learn more about your plants, and flowers are a great indicator behavior.

Some individual plants are more prone to flower than others. If you have a plant that doesn’t flower, but looks healthy otherwise, don’t be concerned. You’re just seeing more of your plants’ “personality”. All of the images you will see today are from one genetic strain of Kanna. It just loves putting out flowers, and I love to see them!

Kanna Flowers starting to form

A collection of kanna leaves and a small flower — This is a good example of what you might see when you first notice a kanna flower starting to form. A bit of yellow showing through, and two “horns” flanking the young flower. These “horns” are circular protrusions at the base of the surrounding leaves. Flower buds are the only places you’ll see that particular formation on a kanna plant.

A kanna bud as well as a kanna flower and leaves — The flower petals are starting to erupt out of the bud. You can see a younger example to the right of my finger as well.

petals emerging from a kanna bud

A small Kanna flower just beginning to emerge — At this point, you can start to see individual petals, but the flower has not started to spread out much.

A Kanna flower just starting to emerge — This flower is just about to spread out.

Fully formed kanna flower

A beautiful kanna flower — And finally, fully formed and presented flowers. Pollinators love kanna and if you’re lucky, you may get some pollination if you have two genetically unique plants flowering at the same time.

Kanna blooms should last a few days depending on the environment. Unfortunately, kanna is not self pollinating. If you are looking to produce seeds, you will need two genetic individuals to pollinate each other.

If you have any questions or thoughts, leave me a comment! I hope you enjoyed this info on kanna flowers!