Hey Nathan! You are in the best gardening zone in Alaska!, any auto worth it's salt will do do well there! Being further north and west of you I'm pretty challenged by growing conditions. A shit load to learn and jumping in is the way to go :smoking:
I've made my own soil, over years, with river silt and humanure compost. No experience with bag soil. If you have garden soil, or access to garden soil, a good place to start. I've been using Down to Earth products for my additives. Check em out online. Find the tutorials on this site, I've learned alot from them. I grow in greenhouse and garden. I'll start everything in spring window grow. The plants that get to grow in the greenhouse get a month head start. And the plants that go to garden and outback in large containers spend 10 days in the window, transed to larger pots in greenhouse for a month before fully out.
Are you a gardener? If so any soil that will grow good veggies will grow good canna. By trial and error us canna farmers learn to add nutes to boost production. If you aren't a gardener already I suggest researching organic garden techniques. And talk to local gardeners about timing. When locals plant warm weather crops it's totally safe for canna.
I'm mostly on Autoflower Portal. You can come over and check it out as a guest. I'm too busy to be here much these days. So big and active here I can't keep up, lol, old and slow I guess.
Speed, hardiness and resistance what I look for in strains. A real crap shoot. Commerce being what it is the truth is elusive. I've had real good results with Magic Strains and Binary Selections. Check em out on site, and www.magicbeancompany.us; and most Autoflower Portal strains I've grown do well up here.
I'll keep a look out over here for you, Time to get soil under the fingernails
to cut it with at least for starting seedlings
hope u & sharon are doin ok in theze crazy timez 
ppp
