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Details of the book:
Back cover
The author of the book is Keith Hayward. It is being self-published by Keith and his wife Christine. They jointly own the business Cannifer Ltd which specialises in growing and selling cannas. For the past 24 years they have held the UK National Collection of cannas under the auspices of Plant Heritage.
The book includes photographs and decriptions of 170 garden varieties. These include modern varieties, old classic varieties which continue to be available, some good old varieties which may be lost but which may still be grown somewhare and may be rediscovered. It includs a report on the UK Royal Horticultural Society trial which was held in 2002. (The author of this book served on the trial committee as adviser). 152 varieties were tested and 28 varieties were awarded the coveted RHS AGM Award. Most of these special varieties continue to be available and are illustrated in the book.
It includes a gallery of cannas as grown in parks and gardens, and civic authorities, and cannas from around the world. Keith and Christine have visited various countries to see cannas, including the USA, Argentina and Bolivia.
It has a section on the botany of cannas, including anatomy and taxonomy. Cannas are quite unusual in the world of plants, in that they have their own plant family, cannaceae, in which there is only one genus, Canna. So although cannas are quite different to all other types of plants, they are all very similar to each other. Cannas are often termed "canna lilies". Cannas are not lilies, ie they are not members of the liliaceae plant family, or even close to it. They are more related to gingers and bananas.
A large part of the book is devoted to the various methods of canna cultivation. Other sections address the breeding of new varieties, pests and diseases, and even the edibility of cannas.
Further information.
Many readers can ignore this section, which deals with the project of writing and publishing this book.
The author uses the Linux operating system on his personal computers (desktop and laptop). The particular Linux "distro" he uses is Ubuntu. This operating system is just as powerful as Microsoft Windows, doesn't get viruses, and is free. For book publishing software he used Scribus, which is free. For editing graphics and photographs he used Gimp, which is equivalent to Adobe Photoshop, but is free. He designed and built the website himself, using nothing but the HTML coding, which cost time but not money. For online sales, he used the Mal's-e shopping cart, which, for this size project, and modest sales is, guess what, free!
The world of book printing and publishing is a jungle with many untrustworthy companies, and the trade contains many warnings for the unwary. The author decided to self-publish, which is even more risky. He was particularly careful in choosing a printer, and eventually chose BookPrintingUK, a division of Bonacia Ltd, in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. It proved to be a good choice; The printing took about three weeks, including the acceptance of a proof copy. The quality of printing and photograpic reproduction is outstandingly good.
He now has cartons of books piled high, and the problem now is marketing and selling. He is starting slowly, selling directly to customers online, and particularly selling to previous canna customers. He hopes that the book gets a good reputation, the news of it will spread, and sales will grow.
Page edited 8 July 2025
Cannifer Ltd
27 Guildford Road West
Farnborough, Hants, GU14 6PS
01252-514421
0776-295-0000 (Keith)
0771-867-9245 (Christine)
admin@cannifer.co.uk
cannakeith@gmail.com