Tropicals starting to flower, etc.
 

The tropicals are starting to look decent here in zone 7. After a whole month of rain, and clouds last month, they are a little behind. :woohoonaner:

Re: Tropicals starting to flower, etc.
 

Looks very nice!
Great canna collection.

Ensete is going to be a monster.
What do you have in the pond?

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Thank you! I think I have about 15 cultivars and species of cannas, took me a bit to find them all canna virus free..............well so far lol, hoping my Canna Omega, and Musifolia Grande are prolific this year, wanted to use them as a background plant but did not have enough yet. The pond is still being worked on, I live in the country and its strange how difficult it is to find sandstone for sale or in the wild around here. Right now the pond just has a few things, a Pink Sensation pond lily, Cyperus Alternifolius, and what was supposed to be Black Magic colocasia but turned out to be Xanthosoma Violaceum (probably replace that with some of my Colocasia Illustris that stays smaller) and some goldfish for mosquito control. I have 3 of the Ensete that slept very well in the crawlspace under the house this last winter, hoping they get huge this year, and you cant see it very well but I have one Ensete Glaucum that reached 10 feet from seed last year behind the Miscanthus Giganteus grass on the left. Sadly I will probably have to discard the Glaucum, I didn't realize it would get so tall the first year, and with such a wide pstem. I dont think its going to fit through the crawl space hole this coming fall. I will at least try overwintering it in the ground with mulch first.

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Looks great. Your cannas look really good. Do u have any of the canna phasion out in the yard ?

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Yes, they appear virus free so far. If they pass quarantine this summer they go out with the rest will take a pic of the leaves when the rain stops, if it ever stops lol.

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Same here it's been raining for days and still is going to all through the weekend.
Yeah I would love to see a picture of them. Phasion and cleopatra are 2 of my favorites sadly I don't have either yet. Next year though,I have bought way to much stuff already this year. 3 of my 4 cannas I purchased last fall ended up being what they were supposed to but 1 was supposed to Maui punch but it isn't. So right now I have Pretoria,lemon punch, orange punch , endeavor and what ever that Maui punch was supposed to be. Grew them all indoors under lights all winter and they all filled the pots nicely so I got a good amount of divisions.

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The Phasion are a little bleached out because the leaves unrolled during cloudy weather and the sun is pretty strong when it comes out, but so far no signs of virus that I can detect, the abnormal lime green, neon pink mottling that you see in stores, cant see anything when held up to the light either. For comparison, the bottom photo off the web, is with virus.

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Yeah looks very nice. This is the easiest canna to spot the virus in. Everyone i see in the stores look horrible and most of the time they are in the clearance section. Think the Pretoria is the hardest to spot the virus in right. When you say look for the bullseye pattern what do you mean? Like color changing starting from the outside and moving toward the inner part.

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You cant really see the bullseye pattern in this photo, but this was my first attempt at acquiring canna Musifolia Grande, I leafed them out in quarantine, and they were obviously virused from the very beginning. The seller had assured me that they were virus free, and even said on their page they were virus free, which is why I bought from them. Basically it will be a ovalish shaped spot with a series of rings, making a deformed, oblong bullseye. You cant always see it but if you hold it up to the light, its very visible, even when faint, I believe this would be bean mosaic virus. After acquiring a clean, real Musifolia Grande, I have decided that one was not a real grande anyway, the coloring is off, it was most likely a seed grown F2 or F3 generation. I have grown Musifolia from seed, from my own plant, and it very rarely looks like, or gets as tall as a real Musifolia F1 hybrid. One of the main reasons people want the Musifolia in the first place is the height. Dont worry too much about the virus if you get strange spots, sometimes too strong doses of fertilizer, etc. can cause blemishes, but its usually pretty obvious if they are virused once you know what to look for. Just check them occasionally, and Also dont believe people if they say virus cant be transmitted in seed, I have also sprouted seeds that were infected from the beginning with mottle virus, so at least that one is transferable.

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Gold tropicana, and Pretoria are very difficult to detect virus in, I have seen it, and it looks like a sandy brown region in the yellow stripe part, but sometimes they burn in lots of sunlight so its hard to tell. basically a sandpaper looking texture.

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Here is a pic of my hopefully clean Tropicanna Gold, second is my Pretoria, 3rd a pic off the web showing infected Pretoria with sandy look, and last a link to a severely infected one on Daves garden at the bottom, I am not sure about the copyright and showing the photo on here.







http://pics.davesgarden.com/pics/201...SLP/7a3b8f.jpg

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Thanks I will post some pics of mine if the rain ever stops. It is still supposed to rain for like another week :(
If we get much more rain all my goldfish will be swimming in my yard as the pond is all the way full as of this morning lol.

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Ha, ha! Mine too, the goldfish almost swam out, and the pots in the pond flipped over.

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Lol luckly my lilies live on the bottom and I have the pot with dwarf cat tails wedged in between some rocks. This is the one time I am glad there is a leak towards the top of the liner. The other thing I have to worry about is the 6 Cats outside scooping them out for a nice treat.

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Here is what they sent me for my Maui punch. All the other cannas were what they were supposed to be but this one.not the greatest picture taken after all that rain.

Re: Tropicals starting to flower, etc.
 

Picture of my Pretoria




Will post some of the others later they are all settled in after splitting and starting to flower

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Even got a banana blooming this year

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Pretty sure that one is canna panache, its definitely got glauca in its genes, I like it what ever it is.

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I looked on their website they have that one labeled as Cora. I didn't like it at first and was just going to throw them away at the end of the year but now I'm undecided. They look ok when they are dry they start out kinda creamy light yellow then look almost white. When they are wet from all the rain they don't look so great.I sent them a email just to see if they would respond or not. I ordered them in fall last year so I know they wouldn't replace it just wanted to see if they would respond. Haven't heard back.

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Groovy...