And now for a barbarism of the botanical variety: Calling garden botanists, Re, canna plants [View all]

Only have had them for a couple of years, always liked them at a distance over decades without knowing what they are like. So first lesson, they are one of those water guzzlers and spreaders, like "elephant ears" and all those leafy tender things, fine. Second lesson, blooms crown the top of very tall, goofy bare stalks, O.K. fine. Third lesson, they need to be "dead-headed" after the blossom poops out, the ball (seed?) needs to be snapped off to allow its energy to channel over to the twin blossom next to it, fine.

So, after the pooping off of a bloom, that stalk is never going to blossom again, so I spent the next year shearing off the upper half of the stalk, leaving the bottom half all leafy and increasingly thick. Plus like with those water guzzlers, these multiply like heck, developing into an ever larger patch in square area and crowdedness. They freeze in Winter unless one of those dedicated gardeners do the thing with the rhizome extravaganza (not me). So frozen, sheared down to the ground leaving the view naked - but no fear, they spring right back in the Spring.

**** The point of this barbarity: After shearing the post-bloom stalks halfway down, leaving ever crowded leafy bottom halves and dead nubs where the blooms were, I have started (now) cutting all of those down-stalk halves at ground level, to thin out the patch. Am willing to hear schooling, but not excessive castigating. Disclaimer, the pic below is from google, but resembles my patch.