Beginner Gardening: Cannas - Aggressive Pruning?, 1 by trackinsand

trackinsand wrote:
this thread slipped my mind and i wanted to give you the fertilizer info you asked for.
i use sunniland professional nursery fertilizer and i doubt you can get that outside of florida but basically what you need to look for is this:

major nutrients which all general fertilizers have unless it is made for a specific plant (like a lawn)
N nitrogen
P phosphorus
K potassium

secondary nutrients
Ca calcium
Mg magnesium
S sulfur

Minor nutrients
Zn zinc
Fe iron
Mn manganese
Cu copper
B boron
Mo molybdenum
Cl chlorine

every one of these nutrients plays a part in plant health and development to varying degrees and whether you're going organic or chemical, can be found in many sources different sources.

some plants need very little of the secondary and minor nutrients and some require much more. that is where the research comes in.


on another subject, we discussed cutting down the flower stalk when it was finished. some cannas will only produce one flowering segment and then be finished (as evidenced by a seedpod forming) and others will form a seed pod but send up additional flowers on new segments. you will come to know the habit of your particular plant the longer you have it. sometimes you have to wait for the second and third flush on a canna. i posted a bloom from Cleopatra on july 20th and left the seedpod to form and did not cut the stem down.

now, on august 6th, here is a picture of the seedpod and a new bud developing next to it but farther up on the stem.