As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
When the country was open, I foolishly for a dollar purchased 2 pretty Cannas bulbs at the Thrift Store. I tried to follow the directions, dug them, washed them, stored them in a cool spot in a brown paper bag and ended up with about half of them dead.
Trying a new method of digging them, and storing them in a bucket at the top of our cellar, netted me forgetting about them, and most of them dead, except for one bulb.
Of course not learning anything, I purchased two more Cannas, which were quite pretty from the farm store, and knew that was 10 or 12 bucks shot in the ass, as death was awaiting those bulbs, as every time I follow instructions from the experts, my stuff is always dead, and that includes Begonias.
As the experts methods seem to produce a market where you are buying new bulbs each year, I decided to try something of God's invention.
All of this had been frustrating as the mother had a friend, who had lovely beds of these things each year. Of course I never thought to ask about what she was doing, and of course she died, so whatever was the solution is buried with her in the ground and it is not like I can ask her son what she did with the bulbs as he probably had no idea she was even growing them.
So at a garage sale last summer, the one gal was giving away plastic planters and we of course took them all. So when the big freeze came, I sliced off the cannas tops with a shears, and dug them up carefully, and into 3 gallon plastic planters they went.
Lord God were they heavy, being wet soil, but in a wheelbarrow they trudged to the house, and to the top of the basement as sitting the hell in the way in the porch was a non starter as with the Hibiscus.
I checked on them in January and they were in good shape, dirt was dry, but the tubers were solid. So hauled them out into the shower and watered them, let them drain and with the dirt down the drain, back to the cellar they went. Of course we had a shitty spring here, which is still blowing cold Canada air today on April 20th, but when I checked them, God had not let them die.
Instead I have some pale yellow and some green plants which have actually grown. I took them outside and on the picnic table, so the baby calf does not eat them on her rounds, have them soaking up water for the afternoon. I will bring them into the porch tonight, but after that our lows are supposed to be in the 40's, and the Cannas can take that.
While this method is not go work if you have beds like Joanne did, as it is too bulky. this did work for me.. I would think someone with a Zone 5 garage would be ok if the plants were on a shelf and not floor, and a basement would work which was unheated in other zones. But I just dug these up, did not injure the roots, so they would not rot in being broken, and kept soil around them which was damp, let to dry out, and before they could shrivel, I watered them midway through winter, and now again in April.
I am thinking that I should have flowers by June, and that is the time we usually just plant the bulbs here as Cannas are August flowers, which is a drawback with them as you never get to enjoy them for more than a few weeks before a frost kills them.
If I can get blooms from July to September that just seems cherry to me, and I will not be upset in looking at them, knowing they will be dead. I have hope now that they will be alive.
I plan to maybe divide them by slicing through the tubers before I plant them into the garden. I know that I can just set the containers out, but they will get too crowded as they already are. The thing about Cannas for me, is I get tubers up the ass as they do grow tubers if not so much on the flowers in our short season.
So it is possible to overwinter them at least for me, in not using the experts methods which killed them every time. The new ones we purchased are hybrids so they are much larger and nicer than the little red flowers of the originals.
My method does work and that is the reason I have shared it here. It is a bit more bulky, but at least I have flowers and this is not some beasty problem to deal with. It is in short, better than shriveled, moldy, dead tubers with me frowning again in starting out spring with dead things.
Once again, another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.'
Nuff Said
agtG
