Help Cannas

lorraine.wheatley

My 2 cannas are stuck in glazed pots that narrow  towards the top and now I can’t get them out. They are deteriorating as stressed and leaves going brown . Any suggestions or shall I just leave them to eventually rot ? , such a shame as grown very large although no flowers 

Posy

That's a difficult choice.  You could try watering and feeding and see if they pick up, or you could sacrifice them and save the pots or you could break open the pots and rescue the plants. Not a happy set of options.

Obelixx

As Posy says you can sacrifice the pots or sacrifice the cannas but there is another possibility worth trying tho I'd have done it weeks ago as new growth was just starting.

Give the plant a good soak till it's thoroughly wet then use an old bread knife or pruning saw, and saw up and down thru the roots using the inside rim of the pot as a guide.  Go as deep as you can.

Eventually you should be able to separate and pull out that central core then tidy it up and re-plant in fresh compost in a wide-topped pot.  Water well.  That way you will save some of the plant.   With any luck, it will have made offsets that may be rescuable from the material left at the edge of the pot so look for those and pot them up too.