Ornamental Gingers





Ornamental Gingers

August and September are the months that ornamental gingers bloom in my garden. What a magnificent sight to see a clump of Hedychium coccineum flower. The orange torch-like 1-feet long ginger flower cone has 30-40 buds and they almost bloom at the same time creating a tropical exuberance. They fire up shade area for 1-2 weeks and the flowers are gone, fleeting yet magnificent. Hedychium coronarium, so called butterfly ginger blooms soon afterwards. The large white butter-like flowers are beautiful, but the fragrance is heavenly sweet and spicy, reminiscent of Hawaii. The flower cone is not a long as Hedychium coccineum and flowers bloom in sequence prolonging the flowering length. Heduchium “Elizabeth” flowers about one week after butterfly ginger. The hybrid has only a slight fragrance, but the flower has a beautiful salmon pink color and is very attractive.

Heduchium gingers needs lot of water and bright shade. They grow quite well in the clay soil of San Diego. They originated from tropical area and pretty high temperature and humidity, but grow quite well in cool coastal San Diego, too. My Hedychium coronarium was purchased during my visit to Maui. It was about the size of my thumb and now it has a clump of ~20 5-feet tall canes. Every 2-3 years I have to dig up the ginger-like root and take out most of root to keep it contained. I used to take these roots to San Diego Horticulture Society’s monthly meeting to exchange with other member. Too bad, the SDHS stopped the plant exchange program this year. Now, the roots goes to the compost pile. What a waste. I read somewhere that the ginger root is also edible, but have not tried it yet. The root looks and smell like the edible ginger you can buy in grocery store. Maybe I have to search the Internet to get the right recipe to use the root.


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