I like cannas due to the tropical appearance, but they havent done to well in my Pacific Northwest yard. I wanted to try again this year, but after looking at several postings and the link below from one of the other postings, I'm wondering if viruses are a significant reason for this failure to thrive.

So far, my figs, potted citrus, and lilies all have noticable viruses. Some bulbs such as daffodils have also been infected and died. The figs do not seem much affected, the lilies died, and the citrus is failing to thrive. It looks like the surviving daffodils and lillies are not infected now, so I'm hoping that once infected plants are gone, those viruses do not persist.

I'm not too concerned about the viruses spreading from one species to another, although this seems to happen some times.

I would like to try cannas again but I really don't want to mess with more infected plants if I can avoid it.

I realize that growing from seeds is slow, that they may not bloom this year, and I wont get variagation or the dramatic flowers of commercial varieties. but if I keep them away from commercial plants, will that reduce or eliminate the presence of virus? Or is the virus passed on through seeds as well as through asexual propagation?

I have grown other slow-to-perform plants from seed, such as agapanthus, clivia, abergenia, and some shade trees, so I know that i can probably grow cannas too, and hopefully live long enough to see them bloom. But, I dont want to waste effort and garden space if it turn out that they are infected intergenerationally through their infected parents.

Thanks for your thoughts. By the way, I searched on this but the garden web search function is not working. Unclear if that is due to a virus too :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Hart Canna virus information