Aruzinsky,

I am sorry but I cannot directly address the potential virus
issue concerning Brian’s Botanicals. I believe he is aware of this issue and
likely attempts to screen his products. No grower can be absolutely positive of
virus free cannas because of the degree or lack of viral load that may be
present in symptom free cultivars. I believe he has likely received C. B Marley as a virus indexed tissue
cultured plant from AG3 in Florida; http://www.ag3inc.com/PlantResults.asp?SW=canna&SF=PlantName&Submit=Go

I would agree with your assumption that C. African Sunset is
likely a synonym for C. Tropicanna the trademarked cultivar that is C. Phasion
PP 10569. I believe this designation applies only in North America. You may
want check Tony Avent’s, Plant Delight Nursery on further Tropicanna info:

http://www.plantdelights.com/index/page/static/subpage/search-results/?search=canna#/?keywords=canna&search_return=all&Activeproduct=y

I will suggest that you will find that C. Bethany (name
originated in England) is likely the same as C. ‘Tropicanna Gold’. We have had this
discussion in the past but it is somewhat different from C. Pretoria aka C.
Bengal Tiger. Assuming it is the true C. Bethany, you will be able to make the comparison
for yourself. I will be interested in your results.

Good luck,

Kent

Thank you, Kent. If Bethany is virus free Tropicanna Gold, I will definitely like it. About 5 years ago, I bought a Tropicanna Gold from Walmart that I knew had virus, just so I could compare its flowers with those of Pretoria. I planted it in the ground more than 50 ft. away from the other cannas and let it die there in the winter. Risky (shame on me) behavior, but, I got away with it.

Incidentally, I overwintered my Durban rhizomes in milled sphagnum moss (cost a fortune) and I am happy to report that there was substantially less attrition than usual (when wrapped in newspaper). I expect to more than double my Durban rhizomes this year.

Got them yesterday:

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

Photo taken yesterday:

http://www.general-cathexis.com/images/MarleyAndBethany2.jpg

The unusually compact growth habit of the Bethany on the left makes me strongly suspect that Brian's Botanicals treated it with a chemical plant growth regulator (PGR), probably a gibberellin antagonist, as a soil drench. If you look closely, you will see that the foremost shoot has progressively smaller leaves. That is absolutely not normal. I have experience with such PGRs on other plants but not canna and PGR soil drenches have long residual activity. It's probably going to take a year before growth returns to normal. Incidentally, in case you are wondering, the banana plants behind these cannas are natural dwarfs, but normal banana plants can be made to look like that with gibberellin antagonists.

Immediately after taking this photo, I transferred these cannas to 10" pots. As a potting medium, I used 50% milled sphagnum moss, 25% peat moss and 25% parboiled rice hulls, by volume. I am now using Peter's Excel 15-5-15 Cal Mag fertilizer, 5 g./gal. with every watering. Occasionally I add thiourea because this fertilizer is missing sulfur. I have observed that solutions of Excel exposed to sunlight do not foster the growth of algae within the solution unless thiourea is added.

those plants were treated with PGR from the lab. I have been good friends with Brian for many many years and we discussed this at length a few weeks back. I also have some of the stunted canna to attempt to grow and report back on. this happened with a few batchs of colocasia a few years back. it seems someone at the lab can get a little heavy handed with the PGR from time to time.

What "lab" and what PGR? I emailed Brian's Botanicals about this and they have not replied.

The most commonly used PGRs are gibberellin antagonists and they fall into two categories of practical importance, those that can be counteracted with exogenously applied gibberellic acid (GA) and those that can't. Ancymidol is in the first category and Paclobutrazol in the second. GA antagonists should have little effect on colocasia because aroid morphology is insensitive to GA. Typically, the only thing exogenously applied GA does to aroids is make them flower.

Anyway, my C. B. Marley is growing normally.

mine is growing so so just a bit slow. IDK if he has any idea which one it was either. There is one they refer to as "bonsai" but no idea what the actual name of it is. will let you know if I find out. glad its growing normally.

Bonzi is Paclobutrazol and cannot be fully counteracted by GA spray.

Update:

http://www.general-cathexis.com/images/MarleyAndBethany3.jpg

Did you ever get your Canna Marlely
or Canna Bethany from Brian’s Botanicals to bloom?

Thanks for
an update.

Kent

"Did you ever get your Canna Marlely or Canna Bethany from Brian’s Botanicals to bloom?"

Not yet, but Marley might be on the verge of blooming. Bethany behaved as though it was treated with a chemical pinching agent because, after the stalks reached a certain size, the terminal buds would die, forcing the growth of lateral buds. I now have 7 pots of Bethany (without sphagnum moss) about 1 ft. high that seem to be healthy. Incidentally, putting sphagnum moss in the growing media was a bad idea because it caused too much root growth at the expense of top growth. Marley is still in the sphagnum moss medium and top growth has slowed considerably, but, at least, the terminal buds didn't die.