Marcelle's Canna creations

Although best known for her Crimum cultivars, over the years Mrs Marcelle Sheppard has also hybridized a number of winning Cannas. One of the most exciting to look at is C. 'Zulu Rouge' with its dark (almost brown-black) foliage and bright red flowers. Many of her cultivars were distributed over the years by Herb Kelly Jr.

The list below itemises her Canna introductions and their genetic provenance.

1. C. 'Blushing Beauty' - Confetti X Chinese Coral
2. C. 'Brocade' - Parks Grande Opera seeds. Parks is a US garden mail order retailer.
3. C. 'Chinese Lantern' - Color Clown seedling.
4. C. 'Colortime' - Color Clown seedling.
5. C. 'Cremora' - Eureka X Confetti
6. C. 'Fantastic Red' - Parks Grande Opera seeds
7. C. 'Gold Mine' - a rogue that just appeared in a Canna bed
8. C. 'Heart Throb' - Parks Seven Dwarf seeds
9. C. 'Honeycomb' - Unknown
10. C. 'Lemonade' - Confetti seedling.
11. C. 'Lunar Light' - Color Clown seedling.
12. C. 'New Dawn' - Parks Grande Opera seeds
13. C. 'New Day' - Parks Grande Opera seeds
14. C. 'New Era' - Parks Grande Opera seeds
15. C. 'New Horizon' - Unknown
16. C. 'New Sensation' - Unknown
17. C. 'Orange Chiffon' - Unknown
18. C. 'Orange County Texas' - Clown Color seedling.
19. C. 'Orange Delight' - Unknown
20. C,. 'Pale Beauty' - Unknown
21. C. 'Peaches'n Cream' - Parks Seven Dwarf seeds
22. C. 'Pink Lace' - Unknown
23. C. 'Phalia' - Eureka X Confetti
24. C. 'Porcelana' - Chinese Coral seedling.
25. C. 'Pretty Butterfly' - Green-leafed from my Red Leafed seedlings
26. C. 'Pygmy Flame' - Unknown landscape small flowered red.
27. C. 'Red Ribbons' - Unknown
28. C. 'Rose Beauty' - Green leafed Rosever seedling.
29. C. 'Rose Ribbons' - Seedling from one of the Grande Opera cannas.
30. C. 'Scarlet Fever' - Confetti seedling.
31. C. 'Spotted Fever' - Only seedling from the other Confetti which was so pretty.
32. C. 'Tangerine' - Parks Seven Dwarf Seeds
33. C. 'Topaz' - Unknown.
34. C. 'Tropical Sunrise' - Unknown.
35. C. 'Weinsap Red' - Parks Seven Dwarf seeds.
36. C. 'Zulu Apricot Nector' - Rosever
37. C. 'Zulu Best Friends'
38. C. 'Zulu Maiden' - Unknown.
39. C. 'Zulu Masquerade' - Sport from Cleopatra.
40. C. 'Zulu King' - Unknown.
41. C. 'Zulu Princess' - Rosever.
42. C. 'Zulu Queen' - Confetti
43. C. 'Zulu Rouge' - Rosever.
44. C. 'Zulu Warrior' - Color Clown.

It is immediately obvious how many fine cultivars have been obtained from the now neglected Grande Opera Series. Thankfully, they are all still available for anybody who troubles to collect them, however, the same cannot be said for the Severn Dwarf Series, which seems to have become extinct. All of Mrs Sheppard's cultivars are in the Crozy Group, except for C. 'Zulu Masquerade', which is an Italian Group sport from C. 'Yellow King Humbert' (syn. Cleopatra).

Finally, C. 'Color Clown' (syn. C. 'Gaeity') has proven to be an outstanding seed parent for Mrs Sheppard, and those contemplating hand propagation should consider this as an outstanding seed and pollen parent.

Canna 'Imagination'

A small Crozy Group cultivar; dark green foliage, oval shaped, branching habit; flowers are open, red-orange with a narrow gold margin, staminodes are large, edges irregular, petals purple with farina, fully self-cleaning, good bloomer; fertile both ways, not self-pollinating or true to type, capsules globose; rhizomes are thick, up to 3 cm in diameter, coloured purple; tillering is average.

Introduced by Malcolm Dalebö, Claines Canna Collection, Worcester, England, EU in 2007.

Breeding is Canna 'Gaeity' x open

Seed at last

Here we are on the last day of the summer, and we have just collected out first Canna seed! Normally, by now we would have a tall pile of seed envelopes, but so far only C. 'Gaeity' and C. 'Champion' have given us seed. Just two seeds from Gaeity and then three seeds from Champion.

Then I went and dropped one of the Champion seeds! In desperation I crawled around on my hands and knees, but to no avail. I had no option but to accept that I had just lost 20% of this seasons seed harvest! And that from a collection of over 200 plants!

There will be some more seeds shortly, but we have now arrived at the time of year where there is not enough time left for new flowers to create and mature further seed, so what we see maturing on the plants is all we can expect this year.

The degree to which the rains had affected us can be realized when seven days after the last heavy rain I walked on a grass path that was still springy to the step. The ground had become totally saturated and could not hold any more water at all.


The months of rain also meant that all of the fertilizers we spread and dug in during spring and planting-out time have been leached away, so on Saturday I applied a liquid feed and we are just hoping for some decent growth and flowers in the next few weeks. However, the temperature overnight dropped to 6 degrees Centigrade, and that will start inhibiting further free growth.

So, a liquid feed weekly and keeping the plants well-groomed, that's all we have to look forward to for the last part of the season, oh, and a few more seeds!