Cannas

I dug up my cannas last fall as the previous year I did not and they didn't seem to bloom as pretty or as large. Now I brought them out of "storage" and am not sure if they are any good. Some of them just look like dried roots and some of them feel mushy. How can you tell if the canna bulb is good to plant. Am new at this gardening thing and need all the help I can get. Thanks

It should feel firm.
Patti

I had a few taht were dried out looking so I potted them and gave them some Superthrive. They still haven't [put up any stems, so I dug them up today to check on them...they have some healthy bulbs/roots or whatever under the dead material. The other cannas that I planted in the garden are all popping up so I'm thinking maybe I ought to just go ahead and plant thses babies and let the garden work its magic.

If the rhizomes are mushy they have rotted. A good rhizome will look whitish and feel solid, but if dried out they should still be firm, and mostly will have an eye which often looks like a large bulge. If they have dried out too much and died without going mushy you can tell by trying to bend them, a healthy one will give a lot of resistance. A dead or nearly dead one tends to go like rotten wood, looks blackish and will snap easily. Try scraping some of the surface and see if there is any life there.

How deep do I plant the cannas bulbs Kim gave me? Rachel