Canna sowing

[sanatic1234]

A canna display i did back in 2011 all grown from seed that year and all of those flowered. Although i don't grow indica no more.

[Kristen]

EDIT: I don't see what advantage you would have by sowing canna seeds in the winter when canna plants are feed/water/sun dependant in terms of good growth. One thing you can not do in the winter months?

just to repeat the salient bit from my earlier post "here was a piece on Gardeners World about sowing Cannas in Autumn ... but that you needed grow-lights to achieve that"

Worked for me, I had huge plants by Spring time I'm sure they would have done well with far less light than I gave them. I have had some Cannas flower from spring sowings, but several varieties that I have tried have not flowered at all/much until second year. My garden is somewhat exposed and the soil is not fantastic, so that may have a bearing.

[sanatic1234]

Probably not the soil kristen, I garden on heavy clay soil but like I mentioned my feb/march sowings always do well I have the odd smaller plant but i put that down to a weaker seed than the rest. And Kristen sorry miss read your earlier post, I did wonder why gardeners world would give out such crazy info on sowing canna seeds in the autumn and having them growing through the winter with UV at its lowest good grow lights would make all the difference and will be much needed. Only canna's I have had that took 2 years to flower was cleopatra and city of portland. But i will no doubt come across a lot others when i expand my collection once i have a greenhouse sorted for them. I currently have over 21 canna's in my storage room and to be honest is taking up a lot of room that other plants could be using. But i think indica has to be the easiest and quickest to get flowering so i have found so far, others may disagree? I must state that cleopatra as you know was not from a seed sowing though with it not producing seed, i mean as a division.

[Kristen]

i think indica has to be the easiest and quickest to get flowering so i have found so far,

C. warscewiczii which sets lots of seed too, has been the most reliable to flower in Year 1 for me, thus I have found it a useful variety to bulk up easily. Its not a very exciting plant, but after a couple of years I have 100's now, and I use them for in-fill where I'm not sure about what I actually want there long term.

The C. tropicanna I have grown have tended to be a lot better in Year 2 than Year 1 (from seed). Dunno if that is different to C. indica? It seems to be a generic name for specific-colour flowering seeds.

[sanatic1234]

Canna warscewiczii is another i grow shown in the picture i posted and yes i have gotten self sown seed ones to flower in a year, best thing about this canna is that it is a specie, not as common as indica although they do produce a lot of seeds. I got over 700 seeds collected this year gave 200 away to two friends. One who now lives in Portugal and i am looking forward to seeing how they look over in Portugal. The stems on my warscewiczii this year were a inch thick, i really did not want to cut them back when i lifted them.

Tropicanna for me have always been virused all 4 time i have brought them so now i stay clear of them. Should try Hartcanna really as i do rate there stock highly. I really am edging towards getting stuggart from there but am trying to find people who have grown them, i want it just for the height really and variegated foliage.

[Kristen]

Tropicanna for me have always been virused all 4 time i have brought them so now i stay clear of them.

Its a bit of a generic name The only ones I have I grew from seed from Jungle. Their Canna Tropicana Series Red, Rose, White and so on

I really am edging towards getting stuggart from there but am trying to find people who have grown them, i want it just for the height really and variegated foliage.

I have Stuttgart Its tall and variegated, but on mine the leaves are very narrow, and I don't find it as attractive as I thought I would.

[miketropic]

I got alot of cross pollination this year between some "kemp" and some "omegas" you can see h much bigger the seed is on the omega crosses from the "kemp"..can't wait to start them off and see what I get..Last year I ended up with 2 variegated canna from seed. I also had the same problem that they got tall and leggy from starting them to early. I will wait till around late Feb. this year

[sanatic1234]

I mostly want the stuggart as a tall foliage to blend in with other plants, a bit of variegation in the right places works wonders, have you had your stuggarts long kristen?

[sanatic1234]

That sound good mike having the variegation from seed. can i ask though what you mean by kemp and omegas? may be it is pronounced different in the UK or is it two canna's i have never even heard of. I agree about the early sowing without grow lights anyway, i tried early sowing a few yeas back now and it just didn't work, i kept a few and they performed the worst out of all the rest i had. (others feb/march sowings)

[miketropic]

over here there called canna "robert kemp" and canna "omega". stuttgart is the variegated form of "omega". the omegas get to about 12 ft once established and very large leaves and thick stalks. they have orange indica flowers..the robert kemps are green with a india red flower. they cross bred and I got seed from the kemp that were almost double the normal size. seeing that that they were next to each other should make an interesting cross..the variegated ones from seed last year are dormant right now so we will see how stable they are this year..

[Kristen]

have you had your stuggarts long kristen?

Two seasons. I thought the plant looked fine when I got it (I bought it at a plant fare, it was in a large pot and was 5' tall or so - so it wasn't a small root in a 2L pot!!), but the variegation was minimal in that first year, and the leaves narrow, so I'm not sure if I got carried away at the plant fare! and didn't check it well, or if it doesn't like the location (its heavily shaded) ... or if the plant is diseased??

[fern Rob]

Im sowing my second batch of seeds next week, but I'm going to peal the outer coating off, it may prove easier said than done.

[miketropic]

I use a nail file to just open up a white speck on them then soak over night..seems to work well

[Kristen]

I'm going to peal the outer coating off

"Pealing" sounds more like Brugmansia seed? For Cannas a "nick" in the coat is sufficient. I find using a file poses the least risk to Life & Limb! Hold seed in pliers with just 1mm protruding, file until the pliers touch the file and there is then resistance, then you have filed the 1mm off. Filing off enough until you can see a small area of white is sufficient. Then soak for 24 - 48 hours

[brendan]

A good webpage for canna sowing http://www.cooltropicalplants.com/growi ... -seed.html