Need help with my Cannas

Hello, I live in Manchester. Last year I was tempted to buy Cannas for the first time in my life. I bought several from different garden centers and planted them in pots.
They spent the winter in their pots covered with special cloth. They all started growing in spring but they are all different sizes at the moment and not a single one is flowering. I understand that they are if different varieties and should be of different sizes. However only one variety looks like a proper size one. 2 varieties I bought from Holland are still about 2 inches tall. My guess is I planted them too deep and I removed some compost from those 2 pots. It didn't help. I would be grateful to get experienced gardeners' recommendations. Should I repot them in autumn? Should I take them out of the pots till next spring? But how to store them then? Thank you.

 

In the gardening world, there are various suggestions asto what to do with bulbs, tubers, corms, rhizomes etc.

Old books etc so often show gardeners lifting, drying and carefully storing these storehouses of natures plants.

My opinion is to leave the roots stock in whatever form, in the ground, or soil. This way the shall we call it the root, will even during it'd dormant/resting stage, still be kept moist and who knows, what soil borne nutrients it will absorb.

Always make sure that the pots/containers etc are kept watered. just as if the roots were in the open ground.

An interesting fact is. Plants oibtained from garden centers etc have been grown solely for the market. You and I may patiently wait perhaps a couple of years for oue seedlings, bulbs etc to grow. In the commercial world the emphasis is on profits. Fast profits at that. So often that beautiful plant at the GC catches your eye. A year later. It doesn't look the same. That's the name of the game.

Please be patient keep your pots etc of plants and let nature take it's course.

 

Mike, I am very grateful for your prompt reply and advice.

 

Don't like to say it but I'd guess the plants in pic 1 and 2 have Canna virus.
To be on the safe side I would destroy those.
They will contaminate the others if they have not already done so.

The others do look ok on first sight but can't be sure.
The virus makes them grow slowly and rarely even flower.

Lots of Canna rhizomes are sold every year that already have the virus, especially those ones in plastic bags from garden centres.

 

Should add there is still plenty of time for them to flower.
Lots of sun and warmth and water and feeding.

 

@Black Orchid I'm growing mine here in the West Midlands, i only started with cannas a couple of years ago, having read about the canna virus before I bought any I've stuck to reputable canna suppliers (hart canna mainly). If you know the names of your cannas you can read up on them and gauge how big they should be. Pic 1 is this morning i only have one canna just coming into flower, the Tropicana i know stays low and the green one in the front is new this year so I'm not expecting much from that. Pic 2 is from the 28th August last year so as @pete as said there's still time for them to flower.

 

Thank you all for your replies.
The cannas on the first and second pictures are Caballero and Cherry Red bought from Farmer Gracy, a Dutch company. The cannas on the third picture are from Thompson and Morgan mixed variety. They were bought as rhizomes. The cannas on the forth picture were bought planted in a pot in Lyme Park. It was labelled Tropicanna. The last one was bought flowering in a pot from B & Q. So I thought they were bought from reliable suppliers. I think it was my mistake to buy rhizomes and not already planted and growing plants.

 

It was OK to buy rhizomes. The dreaded Canna virus could be prevalent in both the rhizome and a potted plant. If the canna is grown from seed it would be virus free ( I think?). I have grown tropiccana from seed and have grown them on from the rhizomes every year. I think tropicanna is a generic name, but mine grow to 1.6 m tall and are just starting to flower. I have a red canna similar to your photo, that grows to approx 0.6 m tall and I can't recall it flowering.

 

Thank you for your reply.