I planted those beautiful purple leaf with orange flowered cannas about 4 years ago. each year they came up, but they did not flower and the leaves would look great and then all of a sudden they looked like swiss cheese. what on earth happened? Today i went and dug them all up. Maybe you have a suggestion on how to plant them? Maybe I did something wrong?

These plants need to be old enough (yours should be) and they need ground dug deeply and enriched with weathered/composted manure, or compost and fertilized. Once leaves die down in the fall they should be lifted. Depending on how cold it gets in your area, they may either be left on top the soil and mulched in or they are brought inside where they can be stored at temperatures between 45 and 55 degrees. Inside - store them in trays and leave soil around the roots when you dig them up for storage. The following spring plant once all chance of frost is past and they should bloom readily in summer. As for the holes, they may be due to weather, insects or "insect relatives." I do not have information to be more definite.