Hard to store Cannas

Another vintage catalogue arrives, and Dreer's Catalogue of 1937 has an item that I feel I should share, as it is quite interesting.

The catalogue had a boxed feature called "Two Sensational Cannas". It referred to C. 'Mary Thilow' and C. 'Mrs. Pierre S du Pont'.

The boxed item stated that "These two varieties, owing to the fact that the roots are very difficult to store, will be supplied as growing plants only. These will be ready March 1st."

It has been our experience that the most difficult Cannas to store over the winter are the Aquatic Group. This is worse for the F1 aquatic hybrids like C. 'Ra', and C. 'Wye', but also applies to those F2 hybrids like C. 'Burbank', C. 'Austria', and C. 'Roma'.

I have only read about C. 'Mary Thilow', mentioned above, and it would be interesting to hear from anybody else who has any knowledge of that cultivar in recent times. The description in the Deer's catalogue stated that it has "Bronze foliage and brilliant rosy salmon flowers. 4ft (1.3m)."

Automatic watering turned of

At Claines Canna, we have turned of the automatic watering system, as it doesn't look as though it will be needed this summer.

Parts of the UK have been on flood alert as torrential downpours swept across the country.

Every corner of Britain was set to be hit by heavy rain, according to forecasters.And as the deluge moved north, seven flood watches across the UK were issued by the Environment Agency.

Summer holidaymakers in the South West saw their travel plans hit as more than 20mm of rain hit parts of Devon and Cornwall in the early hours. Areas of Wales and Northern Ireland were also subjected to heavy downpours. In central London, commuters were soaked as 5mm of rain fell over two hours before 7am.

Claire Austin, a meteorologist from the Press Association's weather division MeteoGroup, said: "There is a possibility of flooding today." The reason we have got so much rain is a band moving north-east." Northern Ireland, the Midlands, including Worcestershire, East Anglia and London have already been hit." There will be heavy rain and, at times, thunderstorms."

Looks like flooding and heavy rains are becoming the norm, maybe not as bad as last year, but enough to blight what we are trying to do. For 10 minutes I saw heavier rain coming down today than I have ever seen anywhere, even in northern Norway during bad storms. Much damage was done to the foliage on our Cannas, and some large leaves were totally shredded by the rain. This was not rain as we know it, this was a monsoon!

Canna sales at Claines

I was planning to follow up the two previous pollination articles with several articles relating to hand-pollination. However, that will have to wait a day or so, as other events have intervened.

As regular bloggers will be aware, last season we suffered a terrible growing year, where we had hardly any worthwhile light during the summer floods, and just enough in the late summer and Autumn (Fall) to start recovering. As a result we had bad foliage on almost every one of our Cannas. The symptoms of stress due to lack of light and Canna virus are identical, as the Canna has a limited vocabulary!

After talking this over, we came to the conclusion that we should not sell any rhizomes last winter, as we had no idea whether they had virus or not. We still went ahead and produced a catalogue of the Collection, but clearly stating that there would be no mail-order sales.

However, we also had the plants from last year that we knew were not affected by virus. These we planned to pot up and sell as growing plants this summer. Over the winter we cleaned and packed about 1,000 rhizomes of these plants. However, during bad weather the electricity supply was cut overnight, and we lost to frost nearly all of the rhizomes we had in our store.

As a result, we have nothing left to sell at present, and all we are left with is the stock plants of the collection, that we are still growing on. We hope that by August we should know what is affected by virus and which is clear, and therefore saleable in the future.

That was the year that was - Malcolm

As we reach the end of the year, full of memories, some good and some bad, we can look forward with anticipation to what the next year will bring us. Gardening attracts those of a philosophical nature, and now that the winter solstice is past and the days are now starting to lengthen again we can start planning next years garden.

La Rochelle in France, harbour and promenade

But we should not forget the lessons we have learnt from the dreadful weather suffered in Europe this summer. Global warming means a turbulent weather pattern, with each year being different from the last. The summer flooding, with clouds everyday, meant that our Cannas were deprived of much light and although they rallied in the autumn, it was still the worst year for Canna that we have experienced. However, we were lucky compared with many others, who had their plant stock destroyed.

This year we did not need to store water, but at Claines Canna we are still proceeding with installing a large storage tank at the highest point of the garden complemented by some small pumps to transfer rain water into the tank. The day will arrive when we will be in severe drought, and with the rapidly changing weather patterns that could be 2008.

A holiday in France meant we came back with many more Canna specimens, again!

Next year we have the International Canna Trials to look forward to, links at the foot of this article, and our thanks to all who have supported Keith, Christine and us in this effort, which will enhance the growing of Cannas considerably.

Canna 'Roi Humbert', grown for 100 years at the Nantes Park Department, France.

Finally, Margaret and I would like to thank all of our Canna friends for their continual kindnesses, sharing their gardening treasures and advice. The Canna world is still small, so let us all look forward with tolerance to enjoying our Canna friendships in 2008. May you all have a very happy and prosperous new year, and we look forward to seeing you at the Canna Trials in 2008.

Margaret and Malcolm Dalebö



Why not visit the Canna Trials in 2008?