I have a ton of cannas and have had to move several of them recently to make room for new plants. It has been climbing to the mid 90's down here with a heat index in the low 100's and tons of humidity. The canna leaves burn quickly after being dug up, but the rhyzome will be fine. They continued to grow although they have some ugly leaves on them now. If you don't like the burned leaves you can just cut them down and they will grow right back. Living in Arizona I'm sure you know cannas like plenty of water. If you would like to trade some of your intrigue, PLMK I have some cannas available right now just check my list.

Cannas are just incredible survivors. My neighbor said: You can beat them up with a stick, and they will survive no matter what. Well, I have not/will not beat them up :-), however, transplanting them in odd times of the season worked for me, and they all survived. Southlatropical is right, the leaved might look bad, but the ryzomes will endure, and the next year will grant you with a healthy plant. They spread quickly, and I usually have to devide them to control their population.

So my next question would be, how is that done? Just dig it up, leaves, blooms and all? Or should I chop the foliage to the ground when I divide them, and it'll come back?

Thanks for all your input. Believe me, it's greatly appreciated!

You could drive a shovel into the clump and dig out what you want. Or you could dig out the entire clump, divide it, and then replant. Either way, do it in the evening near sunset and water heavily afterward. The plants that are dug up and moved will likely burn (maybe a little, maybe alot) and may need to be cut back. The plants left in the ground should be OK. Be sure to dig back about 8 or 10 inches away from the plant and about 10 inches under it. So you get plenty of root out with the plant that is being moved. It's also a good idea to have the hole already dug where they are being moved to. So they can be replanted and watered quickly. I moved mine in 5 gallon buckets. Afer they were planted I make 3 trips with two buckets filled with water and soaked the ground with 15 gallons.

Cannas have become one of my favorite plants, due in large part because they can be tinkered with so easily. Their rhizomes spread like a carpet under the soil surface and throw up new shoots often.

I personally, like to have them grow thickly and endeavor to encourage clustering, dividing only to spread them around. Your photo of your Canna looks great as is, but I know you'll want to spread them around. To spread them, I just dig in with a shovel and break away pieces, preferably with shoots and transplant. I've only had one case where the new transplant suffered any ill effects, the shoots all falling over, wilted. But within two weeks, it perked back up.

This is my first year playing with Canna and I can't wait to harvest the seeds so I can trade for other 'WILD' varieties. I have Canna Flacida ( See Bloom'n Canna thread ). I have obtained seeds for a red flowered Canna x Generalis and have 6 healty and 1 not so healthy sapplings which I'll unpot and put out in Spring, 2008, after they overwinter indoors.

Why not put them out now?

The hired help sometimes doesn't hold back on the weed wacker when it comes to small sapplings! I had to rescue a whole cluster of White Bird of Paradise Sapplings that started comming up out of nowhere, just 20 feet away from the main plant which must have shed the seeds. While checking on their progress, one Monday, I found they had been brutally wacked off. I dug up the spot and planted the whole chuck of earth in a pot and hail this ...

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The Moral to the story ... "Learn to know thy Hired Help and their rash habits." Bird of Paradise is another very hardy plant and they and Canna are related.

But back to Canna.

If ever there was a plant that I felt I could start playing with concepts of cross pollinating, this is the one. Canna are extremely hardy. I only wish they kept their blooms for a longer duration - 2 to 3 weeks and the blooms fall away. That's another reason to allow clustering ... the blooms may fall away on one, while other blooms start up on yet others in the cluster. Solitary Canna go back to being just leaves with seed pods far too quickly.

Thanks for all the info! I feel brave enough to start digging them up and moving them to a new home, away from the bougainvillea with the evil thorns. I will wait until it cools off a little more however. They sound like they are hardy enough to take some abuse and be able to bounce back easily. Hurray for cannas!