Excerpted from Gingers Sparkle in the Summer Garden
By Ceil Dow | The Mercer Society of Mercer Botanic Gardens
For some new plant inspiration, introduce a new colorful ginger variety into your landscape or plant an edible ginger in the herb garden.
CURCUMAS have come a long way since they were grown as your Mother’s Hidden Gingers. New varieties are shorter with fatter and deeper colored flower spikes:
- C. ‘Raspberry’ – vibrant red-pink, pocket-like bracts ending in a whorl of top bracts. Appear in late spring, then bloom again in late June with taller, more colorful inflorescences until autumn winds blow through its maroon-ribbed leaves.
- C. ‘Emerald Choco Zebra’. Its generous long-blooming inflorescence is green with maroonchocolate striped bracts. This Tulip Ginger’s bloom grows taller than the leaves, producing multiple 18-22″ scapes by the time it falls dormant in November.
BUTTERFLY GINGERS (HEDYCHIUM)
- H. ‘Palani’ – shocking orange inflorescence with fragrant, medium-to-wide butterfly-shaped flowers on 18-20″ inflorescence. 7′ tall; bluish-green stems and leaves.
- H. ‘Daniel Weeks’. – Earliest, longest-flowering Hedychium. 5′, inflorescence of fat yellow flowers with a deeper yellow center. Exotic sweet fragrance will perfume the garden from early evening on.
DANCING LADIES (GLOBBAS)
- Old favorites getting harder to locate. Extended flowers pull long, slender, reed-like stems downward causing them to bob, or dance, up and down.
- Bulbil-producing Globba globulifera produces eggplant-purple bracts with bright yellow flowers. New plants emerge the following year. Caution: some spectacular-blooming Globbas do not multiply. Look forGlobba globulifera
EDIBLE GINGERS (shade)
- Tumeric is a Curcuma or Hidden Ginger. Pastel pink flowers appear in early July amongst wide pleated leaves.
- ZINGIBER OFFICINALE. This is the spice sold as ginger, a Pine Cone ginger (for its pineconeshaped inflorescence).
- FINGER ROOT. Kaempferia galangal or the edible variety of peacock ginger.
- Alpinia galangal, aka Greater Galanga, is a variety of Shell Ginger.
Gingers don’t require a lot of effort, just a little water and a little sun. Throw in a little fertilizer and they will become a long lasting garden companion. For Ceil Dow’s full article and more valuable ginger-growing information, log onto this link: http://themercersociety.org/event/gingers-in-your-garden“
