To my knowledge, there are no cannas with blue foliage or flowers! Cannas may have green, bronze (red) or a combination to the two but not blue. Occasionally someone will describe a canna leaf as being blue-green or even a bronze leaf with pigmentation interspersed with green as being a blue hue but in reality this does not hold up to a color spectrometers criteria for blue. To date, blue has not been reveled in cannas. I think we are only hoping and wishing. Regards, Kent

Thanks, Kent. Truthfully, we haven't had a real zone 7b winter in at least 10 years, and this definitely wasn't one. The lowest temp we experienced was around 17, and that only briefly. I've been growing cannas for as long as I can remember; no one here would think of digging and storing them, and they're rampant, often naturalized perennials. Within ten feet of the deceased 'Panache' is an enormous clump of 'Australia', and elsewhere in the garden are 'Wyoming', 'Constitution', 'Pretoria' (or 'Bengal Tiger' - this has even wintered over in black plastic pots sitting right out in the open for the last couple of years - just some spare plants for which I never found homes), and a red passalong variety that looks pretty close to a species. Others have come and gone over the years, and there are all of the usual suspects represented in the neighborhood, which I why I'm puzzled about 'Panache'. Drainage is not spectacular anywhere on the property (we're in a coastal area, just on the cusp of the area indicated as a flood zone n topographical maps), so that's always a concern, but also a boon to growing things like cannas and crinums, at least in the summer. Anyway, if I can scare up another plant (part of the reason for my consternation is that it's tough to find - I snagged that one on the sale table at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria one summer), I'll give it another shot, not that I have room for it, anyway.

I was told years ago that those stupid little plastic windmills can help with that. The wind will spin it and the vibration will carry down the metal rod into the ground. Moles/voles are supposed to hate it. I'm not sure if it's true but anytime I start noticing mole/vole activity near any of my gardens I stick on in the ground and I've never lost any plants *knock on wood*.

Thanks for all your input :-) I don't think it is the C.Glauca, mine is very spotted. Kathy, you must be right with the indica canna ID, they are all with those thin flowers. I'll have to check about the tubers.... the pewter moon has dark leaves, so that should not be it. This plant is grown from seeds. And no, I don't remember who gave them to me :-/ here is a picture to show the size, the flower is really small: here is a better picture of the leaves (never mind the dillweed, it sprouts everywhere):