Very impressive and beautiful! That's quite the hedge you have there. My back hurts just thinking of digging those all up, lol. I have a grouping of cannas in pots that I will need to lug inside shortly and I'm not looking forward to it.

You have an exceptional display of some of the most
difficult canna cultivars to acquire and remain healthy. In fact, your Pink
Sunburst, Tropicanna, Pretoria and Intrigue appear to be pristine. I have seen
few collections at this present time displaying the grandeur you are
presenting.

I am somewhat concerned with the leaf anomaly the potted
Durban shows. Is that typical when compared to the Durban in the larger bed? I
found Durban challenging to grow and store over the winter; rhizome increase
was typically limited at best for me.

I definitely like using the lower growing Pink Sunburst in
the front of the bed.

If time permits, could you attach a photo of your Intrigue, showing both the foliage and bloom? Yours appears to be very well grown and
true to name. There are a number of gardeners growing seedlings of Intrigue and the bloom color is sometimes slightly changed. Actually the seedlings produce both
green leaf plants with yellow blooms as well as the dark leaf cultivar.

Congratulations,

Kent

What leaf anomaly? My Durbans have always shown mild virus-like symptoms, especially early blooming (it is always first to bloom), but, in 10 years of contact with other cannas, the symptoms have never spread, therefore I conclude that it is virus free.

http://www.general-cathexis.com/images/Intrigue.jpg

I bought the Intrigue from Brian's Tropicals, about 5 years ago. I have seen it growing in planters along the street in Oak Park, IL ( Not Berwyn! ), same bloom color.

Speak of the Devil, here is a recently taken photo of somebody's front yard, about 1.5 miles from my house:

http://www.general-cathexis.com/images/CannaVirus.jpg

The solid bronze canna shows virus symptoms but the Pretoria and Tropicanna next to it do not, unless stunted growth is the only symptom that they manifest. But, this is a shaded area which explains their small size.

Fantastic planting this year, it does look great! The Pretoria is always my favorite but the intrigue looks amazing as well. To be honest I've not really been impressed by that cultivar before, but your planting is making me rethink that.

any particular fertilizing schedule? They look very healthy, thanks for sharing.

I start the cannas in a greenhouse before planting outside. After planting outdoors on 6/1, I only fertilized twice, on 6/21 and 7/19, each time, 1.5 lbs. soluble chemical fertilizer in 32 gal. water.

That sounds very reasonable, thanks. Mine must just be short on soil moisture and soil prep which I'll try to work on next year. Also thanks for the Brian's botanicals tip, I've already made plans for a Pretoria and intrigue for next spring!

just curious about one more thing. Do you cut tubers with a knife or pruner or do you just break them apart when planting? I understand canna virus is spread via sucking insects but I feel like in most gardens it spreads via contaminated pruners and cutting up of tubers. I rarely see any insects on my cannas.

i was thinking that in regards to plants growing next to each other yet not contracting obvious virus infection.... Not that I'm saying any of yours look infected but in the other photo of the neighbors plants they do look like they have something but it hasn't spread from one to the next.

I snap them as well, but I wouldn't be surprised if commercial growers cut without sterilizing. It wouldn't take long to infect a field of roots with a dirty blade.

I've heard people say there's a typhoid Mary out there, and usually it's 'tropicana' who gets the blame, but I think the spread of virus just happened to explode around the time 'tropicana' came out... and I can't think of any cannas which have ever been propagated as seriously, widely, or maybe riskily as this one has been.

Just my thoughts here, I really only grow and know cannas on an amateur level.