I am looking for anyone who really likes and grows gingers I live in South Georgia (almost Florida)

BK, I only grow a couple of gingers, but 'White Butterfly" ginger is the really important one. Those flowers are very large and fragrant and our hummers love them.

BK, someone shared several different gingers with me this past summer. I've only grown them one season. But, like Dr. Dawg, my most reliable is white butterfly ginger, hedychium coronarium (sp.?) I have a tall peach NOID hedychium which is also reliable for me. I've had both of those for a few years. What is the ginger in your photo? It looks like a spiral ginger, costus, but the flowers look huge, more like red ginger, alpinia purpurea. They are very large and healthy looking. What type of gingers do you grow? Xerantheum on this site, also grows several gingers.

@QueenEmma Hedychium gingers are my favorite . I'm slowly trying to separate my hedys as some had grown into each other. Had a curcuma and a kaempferia at one time but no longer.

Debbie it is spiral ginger and is over 6feet tall It just grows everywhere for me (I mulch it in winter and the seeds come up all summer I love it. I should say that it got over 6 feet before 1st freeze.

I also have the curcumas and they to me are beautiful.

here is a later & closer pic.

I have three types of Ginger. The more I watch them the happier it makes me. They are beautiful at all stages of growth, the flower is just a bonus like a cherry on top of a sundae.
Also have two Curcuma plants.

I love that color, Greene. Is that a Curcuma plant? If so, does it die back in the winter and then re-appear in the spring? Does it grow via rhizomes? Want to trade?

Greene, re: your curcuma. That's a very pretty flower. I bought a pot of Siam Tulip this past summer. I don't think that it's hardy here in my zone. It's sitting dormant in my garage. I have a tall curcuma, c. elata, I think, planted in the ground and mulched. It has returned after the last 2 winters, but I have yet to see it bloom. Maybe it will this spring. Queen Emma, I've never seen a spiral ginger grow that large. They are really impressive.

pink curcuma



red pinecone ginger

pink curcuma plant


white curcuma with var leaves

Deebie the key to gingers is mulch, fertilizer and lots of water. I use 10.10.10 and miracle grow liquid.

Gorgeous flowers. Is this the kind of ginger you can use in cooking?

The 'White Butterfly' and the 'Shampoo' gingers (the only two I grow) are not used for cooking. The "sap" of the 'Shampoo' cone is used as a hair conditioner though.

Ecscuba: No you don't eat this one. I do have the eating gingers I will look up a pic. & post it. It doesn't get as high as the regular ones and has small but beautiful purple blooms in late summer. I grow it in a bathtub and harvest it each fall. Haven't done that so far this year though. I redo the soil and replant the ones I want to grow and wash & put in bags & freeze the rest. Best tea ever..Oh, by the way I bought my start at walmart in the grocery isle.

Sorry to be late back to this thread;
Deebie, I saw the 'Siam Tulip' type of Curcuma at Lowe's and the plant/garden manager did a Smart Phone look-up; this is considered by retailers to be a 'half-hardy' in you zone (you are 8a; I'm 8b, so not that much difference). Retailers count on people to grow this as an annual; buying new ones each year. Not necessary to do that. The plant will go dormant for you in the cold months. As QueenEmma said, mulch, mulch, mulch. While the plant is dormant give it only minimal water and zero fertilizer. In the spring you should be rewarded with a healthy plant. That is my full extent of knowledge about this one.

for the tips on growing these beauties, Queen Emma and Greene. I will be diligent in caring for my gingers this coming spring/summer. Hopefully I'll have blooms and photos to share. I bought a red ginger, alpinia purpurea, that I have to keep in the house. It blooms on old canes, so it can not go dormant. What I need is a greenhouse.

I love gingers too, and grow several varieties. Will be home from a trip Sunday and post some pics then. I have that white costus in your first pictures and just love it BTW!

I have several NOID gingers and White Butterfly. I barely get enough sun for them to bloom. I am hoping a supposedly orange Spiral Ginger blooms for me next year since I am wintering it over in a warm greenhouse. I have the one that doesn't bloom but every time you touch the leaves, it smells like cinnamon. I love that one!

I saw a blue ginger in Hawaii that I'd like to get my hands on. But I need to have my trees uplifted so that I get more sunshine in the back yard so they can bloom.

Cheryl, the blue ginger is really nice and easy to grow but its not actually a ginger. Look it up in the database, you'll get the scoop on it.

I suspect it got the common name of blue ginger just because the flowers look a lot like gingers.

I imagine lots of plants acquired names, not because of their "family" but because of what the plant and/or flower looks like. One of the plants I grow and propagate is the "Blackberry Lily" (also called "Leopard Flower"). It is Belamcanda chinensis, and is of the iris family, not the lily family.