Flowering Gingers

September 3, 2010 at 5:00 am · Filed under Uncategorized

The fowering gingers give a lush tropical accent to any landscape and make wonderful container subjects.  These are easy care perennials.  Their lush foliage varies from narrow to broad and long with a tail like tip.  Ascending to arching stems often hold foliage in two ranks and these are tipped with the flower clusters.  Flowers vary from white, yellow, orange, red and even purple.  Many are fragrant, and all are showy and make excellent cut flowers for the vase.  Dramatic foliage is always a nice foil, but in the variegated cvs., that is even more apparent.  Stripes and flecks in white or yellow are dramatic and eye catching and give the plant even more attention all the time before they are in  bloom.  These tropical looking accents are relatively hardy for us.  The tops die down in hard frosts, but new growth comes fast in spring.  Treat them like Cannas, dahlias, or gladiolous, but you can leave the root clumps in the ground.  Just be sure to mulch heavily to protect against deep frost.  Ample watering and fertilizing will yield wonderful results in the clump.  You will get amazing stalk numbers and each of those will be topped with flowers.  They also need / like heat to bloom in profusion. (think rain forest, or tropical monsoon)  high organis soil amendments added to your planting site will give the best growing conditions.  There are many species and varieties from which to choose.  I have over 3 dozen different kinds.  They vary from dwarfs less than 3 ft tall to giants over 10 ft+ !  Their fragrnace is like frangipani(plumeria) or something like gardenia or jasmine.  Individual flowers are not spectacularly showy, but in the densely packed clusters, their numbers give a very big show!  Partial shade will give the best foliage appearance, but full shade (high open sky above) or even full sun with lots of water, will suit their easy culture.

The various types include these:

Alpinia zerumbet (A. speciosa, A. nutans) pendant flower clusters atop tall arching stems.  Needs time to make a larger clump in order to bloom really well.

A. z. ‘variegata’ is a very showy cv. of this, with dramatic yellow striped foliage.

A. formosana ‘variegata’ is dwarf with pin striped white and treen leaves, very showy and compact.

Hedychium coronarium is the old fashioned white that is typically the most common ginger.  It also needs heat to bloom really well, but those wonderfully scented flowers make it worth the effort.

H. gardnerianum (Kahili ginger) is a dependable favorite which will bloom with the least amount of heat.  Spidery golden yellow flowers are very fragrant and showy in those large clusters.

H. densiflorum is early blooming and with light yellow flowers in dense clusters.

H. greenei is a show stopper with bronze foliage, the color especially apparent on the undersides of the leaves.  Here you get brilliant red flowers to top everything off.

Hedychium has a number of great hybrids and cvs. within it.  Among the best are Luna Moth with a very long bloom seasonof fragrant white flowers on a shorter plant. 

Mother Lode is a white with more substance and bloom than typical H. coronarium.

H. Tara is a bright orange and early bloomer, it is tall with blue green foliage too.

H. Kin Kaku is taller with golden yellow flowers marked with an orange flare.

H. Filigree is a dwarf of great charm and less than 3 ft tall.  Orange spidery flowers in dense clusters.

H. Orange Shebert is a repeater for me sometimes.  Bright orange yellow fragrant flowers on a medium grower.

Zingiber myoga is an edible one.  Small growing to perhaps 3 ft, the plant is used for culinary purposes.  (blanch the young shoots)

Z. m. Dancing Cranes is an amazing dwarf variegated form.  Dramatic white centers to the green leaves.  It almost glows in any planting!

There are a great many more cvs.  and I will discuss them as they bloom.

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