Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, I realize that cutting the foliage has nothing to do with the plants going dormant. But my reasoning is that since they grow continuously in my climate, it would be a "loss" for me to cut them down, whereas in a temperate region, they would have died back and regrown the next spring anyway. 1. The source of infection is probably the wind, since canna groves are very common in this region, and I have yet to see any *without* some degree of rust. This is why I have avoided wetting the foliage, but the occasional rains are beyond my control. 2. As far as I know, the cannas manage to survive even severe rust infections due to their hardy and vigorous growth. However, the rust makes the foliage terribly wretched, and I don't see any reason to just let it be *if* there exists an effective fungicide. 3. The only thing I can think of is to avoid foliar wetting, as stated above. Any other suggestions? 4. I have been doing this religiously ever since I put them in the ground: ammending with compost, humus, using compost teas and spraying with seaweed/fish emulsion. 5. Doesn't seem to be helping so far. Or maybe it is, and the infection would be much worse had I not done the above :P Still, my aim is to attack the fungal growth as early as possible while the plants root and build up their natural resistance.

I'm enjoying all these comments; it's always fun when a post starts a conversational ball rolling. Seil, your comment is acute, though I would substitute "regularity/irregularity" for "perfection/imperfection". A garden composition can be irregular but perfect (here I'm thinking of my grouping of R. moschata with rosemary behind it against a wall, with wild violets, creeping thyme, anthemis, nepeta, and some wild pea-thing at their feet: it just happened, but is lovely). Henry Mitchell (whom I cite ad nauseam, but it's because he said so much of what's worth saying) noted that there's a difference between a garden's being perfect and its being wonderful, with the implication that it's the wonder that's worth seeking. By the way, I don't by any means despise symmetry, and, correctly dosed, believe it has its place in the garden. In fact I've always wanted a formal garden. But I can never convince my husband that geometrical regularity is inappropriate in a steep, irregularly shaped piece of ground belonging to people who can't afford massive earth-moving operations. Courage, Ingrid. I hope, and believe, that you will always find it's worth it. Martha/docmom, that's the wonder of the Internet, isn't it? that we can engage in these conversations. Thanks for joining in. One point I wanted to emphasize: nature as collaborator. We all know about weather and bugs and wildlife and so on. I allow mother nature a relatively free hand in the garden: I don't water after the first year, don't make war on pests, and welcome little plants that arrive on their own into the beds and grass. So how the garden looks doesn't depend entirely on my own design sense, pocketbook, etc. This increases the element of chance that I spoke of earlier, but it also greatly increases the beauty of the garden, according to my ideas of beauty. A loss of control is necessary for beauty, the real thing. It doesn't come when you call. Jackie, "...And since to look at things in bloom/Fifty years is little room,/About the woodland I will go/to see the cherry hung with snow." I too have been emerging now and then from my absorption in the tasks at hand to marvel at the beauty around me. It's clear from your posts that Nature is a valued collaborator in your garden. Suzy, I think we understand that beauty is subjective (hence the tolerance on this forum): beauty is what moves our heart, and that differs from person to person. Your arguments in your second post make sense, about aesthetic rules that have stood the test of time and genetic built in prepossessions in favor of health and strength. About what we garden for. My goals and desires in my gardening are all tied together in one package and it's difficult to separate them out: I think they're intimately linked, and beauty is only one aim, but tied to all the others. I garden for beauty, and I garden for the health and fertility of my land. My garden can't be a whited sepulcre, glossy without and rotten within. So I'm wary of poisons and synthetic fertilizers because I think they'll be bad for the soil, for beneficial insects, bad for the environment as a whole and for us humans who are part of it. I grow plants that are adapted to my garden's environment so that I'll have to make as few interventions as possible, for example watering, since water isn't overabundant here. I garden to produce oxygen and sequester carbon and anchor the earth and increase its water retention. This has nothing to do with the striving for beauty. Earthworms aren't beautiful. Crumbly black earth and steaming piles of compost aren't beautiful (are they?). Gray March weather with temperatures sitting steadily in the thirties certainly isn't beautiful, yet I remember exchanging congratulations with another gardener on precisely this kind of weather, because we knew it would set up our plants for a splendid spring. If you think of gardening in terms of emotional rewards, then certainly we don't garden only for beauty. Sprouting peony or cyclamen seeds aren't beautiful, but they definitely are exciting. And I think very few of us want a garden; instead, we want to be gardening. So much for gardening solely for beauty. Thanks for bringing that up, Suzy. I think generally people's aesthetic sense isn't totally unlinked to their moral sense; however it has developed, whether genetically programmed or a result of education, if we know a beautiful object has grown out of some form of abuse, it's less beautiful to us, or ceases to be beautiful at all. More than this, the moral element spills over into the aesthetic area. This may also have a genetic basis: our sharp ancestral eye sees the health that underlies, or doesn't, the organism before us. I'm inclined to think--I don't know this for sure--that an ecologically healthier garden (fertile soil, a flora that doesn't require constant heavy intervention) will generally look more beautiful to me that one that is less healthy. People are the same way: healthy people are more appealing to me than unhealthy ones, this referring also to mental and moral and not just physical good health. Boncrow66, thanks so much for you good wishes, and the same to you! Yours sounds like a happy garden. My daughter's smile is beautiful too. Melissa

As far as ants go...I was able to purchase the last bag of diazanon granuals at a local nursery the year that it was put on the banned list. I sprinkle a little on the ant hill as if I was salt and peppering it and the next day when I come back to see, there is no sign of any ants. All dead. With our acreage being on the top of the valley I find that there are a lot of ants that think that living in the valley just isn't good enough anymore and need to find a new home on my acreage somewhere. Each year in the middle of July I will find a migration of ants happening. Two nights ago I saw one batch of red ants going east to west across the yard and the night before that one group of 1/2 red, 1/2 black ants going from the northwest to the southeast. The ants will carry eggs with them and seem to know exactly where they are going. If I step in their way they go around me and keep on going, even if I step in the way of the leaders. There are thousands and thousands of them, making a foot wide path and they seem to be on a mission because they are going as fast as their little legs can carry them. It is very interesting to watch. The other night I followed the last ant across the yard and into the bush on the other side. Boy, do they go a long ways...and who knows where they started from. Here I have all sizes of ants from the iddy biddy to the large carpenter (I think) ants, and colors from red to black. The large ones have put occasional holes into the wooden tree stepping stones that my DH cut for me to use as a pathway. Diazanon works for them too. Brenda

I'm organizing the info. for future reference ***** Yes to black-peat humus as topping to buffer acidic rain, plus NPK of at least 10-10-10 for pots. Tested black-peat-humus plus horse manure (both alkaline) in 2011 for roses in the ground (clean past Nov), plus black-peat-humus potting soil (mixed with alkaline sand) for roses in pot in 2015 (Perle and Cloudert Soupert, both healthy until snow). Humus can hold the equivalent of 80–90% of its weight in moisture, and therefore increases the soil's capacity to withstand drought conditions.[32][33]The biochemical structure of humus enables it to moderate – or buffer – excessive acid or alkaline soil conditions.[34]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humus Above pic. is Perle d' Or, own-root in a pot with snow, winterized in my dark & unheated garage. Pic. taken the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 25, 2015. It's 100% healthy, no pests, no diseases. Things I did right this year: Own-root from a tiny-rooting is wimpy & small. So put a 4" layer of soil mixed with alfalfa pellets ON TOP. That for constant release of nutrients, plus to lock in moisture. This was wet year. To buffer acidic rain, I put 1/4 cup of pea-gravel, for slow-release of calcium & magnesium & trace elements. Advantages: Pea gravel magnifies the fragrance. Pea-gravel scatters out and doesn't block out rain like big-chunk red-lava rock. Pea gravel is alkaline, so it neutralizes acidic rain. It rained so much I didn't bother with SOLUBLE fertilizer. I followed U. of Kentucky success with Omega 6-6-6 (blood meal, bone meal, sulfate of potash). I put high-bone meal fertilizer NPK 4-10-7 in the potting mix. Also topped with 1/2 tablespoon sulfate of potash, 1 tablespoon gypsum, and 2 tablespoon blood meal. This lasted for 2 weeks of constant rain.