So I tried my hand at several things this year. All were started under lights in my basement.

White Butterfly Ginger - potted up 12/11/14
Kahili Ginger - potted up 12/13/14
Store bought ginger - failed and restarted in June in my pretend greenhouse
Turmeric - potted in mid December

The Turmeric recently started turning brown so I dug up and washed off and will store for awhile. Likely repot in Dec or Jan and start them again.

Of the four, the White Butterfly is the only one that bloomed and that happened in my Living room starting last week. That and the Kahili were brought in from my screen porch on Columbus Day.

Those two and the store ginger still look pretty good. The White is still sending up new stems and has 8 now.

My question now is what should I do? Should I dig them up, clean them off and replant in a month or so? Or later and give them a rest? Or should I just move them all to my basement grow area where they will have 12 hours of light and Temp (mid to upper 60s) and humidity which I can control.

I want to care for them as best as possible. Even without blooming, all are very lovely. The two fancy gingers have some leaf browning on the ends cause it took me forever to determine they liked it best on my screen porch where they received mostly indirect light. I had had them outdoors and they were getting fried, even with just some morning sun.

I have searched the Internet with little useful info for my circumstances.

TIA

David, I wish I could give you some direction with the White Butterfly, but my knowledge is only based on how I grow it here in Mississippi. All my ginger goes completely dormant from approximately December through February. Mine is still in bloom here but when we get the first heavy frost, it will all begin to die back. I have never tried to grow the White Butterfly inside. I found that the Shampoo Ginger will not take extreme cold (I count mid to low teens as being extreme ) and have potted all that variety. I will move it all to a greenhouse before the weather turns freezing. I will plant it back into the landscape in March/April.

Aha, so it is the cold that has caused my shampoo ginger to decline. I never thought about that but the past two winters have been unusually cold. It used to be such a thug and difficult to keep in check now there is darn little of it. Maybe I'll pot some for the winter and see what happens. Thanks Ken.

Alice, I thought I had lost all my Shampoo Ginger this past winter. It finally came up two months later than usual, but only a sprig here and there. Each time I found a sprig of it, I dug up the rhizome/plant and potted it. I think I ended up with 8-10 potted plants.

drdawg said: I found that the Shampoo Ginger will not take extreme cold (I count mid to low teens as being extreme ) and have potted all that variety. I will move it all to a greenhouse before the weather turns freezing. I will plant it back into the landscape in March/April.

In the GH does it die back? If not, do you cut it back to pot level?

David, I don't know. I have never overwintered any of my ginger inside before. I am going to leave them as is, in their pots, and water when the soil dries out. I don't know whether they will naturally go dormant since the temperature will be suited for my orchids and other tropical plants.

Shampoo Ginger aka Pine Cone Ginger

I have a white shampoo ginger like yours somewhere in my jungle but most of mine are red.


David, I am not sure but I suspect the potted gingers will go dormant like they do outside.

Shampoo Ginger have a range of colors, red/yellow/green cones, but the flowers are typically white. Often the green cone ones will turn bright red if there is enough sun exposure. All my Shampoo Ginger have been grown in deep shade. I am moving them into partial sun in the spring and will be interested to see if those green cones change to red.

I went out and potted up both red ones and ones I think are white. The "shampoo" has such a pretty scent and I used to love squeezing a cone to wash my hands when I was working outdoors. Mine were all in partial shade.

drdawg said:David, I don't know. I have never overwintered any of my ginger inside before. I am going to leave them as is, in their pots, and water when the soil dries out. I don't know whether they will naturally go dormant since the temperature will be suited for my orchids and other tropical plants.

So they will be in a GH and you never did this before? You simply left them in the ground?

I am thinking now that maybe I should have just left my Turmeric in is pot and put it in my grow area. But I did find that my rootstock increased by a factor of 4 or so.

I am thinking that I will just bring my store bought and 2 fancy ones to my grow area and let them do what they want. Just give em enough water to keep em alive. Surely they will go at least semi-dormant.

Yes, the 'White Butterfly' have always been outside. They seem to handle cold really well, at least the cold that we get. Well, until this year, the 'Shampoo' have too. Since I almost lost all my 'Shampoo' gingers last winter, I am taking no chances with them. It is not normal for us to get into the lower teens or single digit temperatures, but we did last winter and that's what almost caused me to lose them all.

David, I am a zone 5 gardener in SW Indiana and I grow over 30 varieties of Hedychium and several other genera as well. I grow them all in 3 to 5 gallon pots. Mine overwinter in a cool greenhouse, down to 50 degrees, and we have weeks of overcast weather here in the winter, so not really a lot of light, either. Probably comparable winters to yours. Most all of my hedychiums bloom every year from early August on through the end of September when I have to start cleaning them up to come back inside. My plants don't really grow in the winter. They just maintain most of the old stems, though some of them tend to die back more than others.

First, congratulations on getting your H. coronarium to bloom indoors. You must be pretty attentive to your plants to do that. I find coronarium to be the easiest to bloom and one of the first to bloom each season, but blooming them in the house is always a challenge.

As far as your specific questions, do NOT unpot the rhizomes and dry out your hedychiums. They will likely survive, but you will set them back so much that you'll lose a month of growing season in the spring just to get them rehydrated and growing again. Keep them in the pots. If you can keep them growing fairly well, with adequate artificial or natural light, that's fine. If you want to cut them back to the pot and just keep them a bit moist all winter in a cooler area, that works, too, though they will be a bit slower to get going in the spring than ones that have retained some living shoots on them. Just don't put them in a warm and really poorly lighted area because the heat will push them to try to grow and they'll exhaust themselves without adequate light to make more food. If you have bloomed coronarium indoors, you probably have a handle on the right amount of light.

If you have further questions about varieties or care, you can post here or send me a treemail. I haven't been on this site much lately and wouldn't have seen your post, but another member (Deebie) told me you had a question about gingers. BTW - your Kahili (H. gardnerianum) is probably my favorite of all the ones I have. I first grew it in the mid 70's and I still love it today. Best of luck with your growing.

Just my 2cents on the Shampoo Ginger, mine do die back even down here in the "semi-tropics". We had a few nights down to the 40's last winter and that was the extent of our "cold" weather.

But the Shampoo Gingers are already starting to peter out, even though we've had really warm fall weather. A few nights below 70 starts them towards sleepytime.

I'm with Bob on the Hedychiums. Mine keep leaves all winter unless we get as low as 30's although they don't grow or bloom. Keep them in their pots in the basement, cool and a little water.

I live in a warm tropical climate with temperatures that rarely go below 70F, but we do have some plants that go dormant at this time of year. I have some shampoo gingers in the ground as well as in pots; and have turmeric ginger growing in the ground. Their leaves have already turned brown and dried. This is the best time to harvest the turmeric rhizomes for culinary spicing.

Isn't that unusual, my turmeric is still very green with no signs of going dormant. During our mild winters it stays green.

BobW said: <snip good tuff>

First, congratulations on getting your H. coronarium to bloom indoors. You must be pretty attentive to your plants to do that. I find coronarium to be the easiest to bloom and one of the first to bloom each season, but blooming them in the house is always a challenge.

As far as your specific questions, do NOT unpot the rhizomes and dry out your hedychiums. .... Just don't put them in a warm and really poorly lighted area because the heat will push them to try to grow and they'll exhaust themselves without adequate light to make more food. If you have bloomed coronarium indoors, you probably have a handle on the right amount of light.

I haven't been on this site much lately and wouldn't have seen your post, but another member (Deebie) told me you had a question about gingers. BTW - your Kahili (H. gardnerianum) is probably my favorite of all the ones I have.

We are in nearly identical environments. I am in NW Missouri.

Regarding the indoor bloom, it started budding some time ago - I had it on my screen porch where it got filtered light for much of the day. I brought the gingers in on Columbus day.

Trying to figure out what outdoor light they liked best drove me nuts. At first I had them in mostly full sun and they started toasting. Then I moved them to what turned out to be too much shade.

I will be storing them in the basement where I have plenty of light - metal halide and full spectrum fluorescent. That is where I started them last December.

I will definitely NOT remove them nor dry them out!! Thank you and Back @BobW. And thanks to @Deebie.

My final (at this point ) question is what kind of light do you give them in the summer? Where are they growing physically?

Thanks and best regards.

My Hedychiums are in partial shade all summer, and a little more sun at this time of year. They grow fine but don't bloom in too much shade, but I haven't had problems with burning leaves on the ones that get morning sun. Even the variegated ones like Dr. Moy keep nice leaves in more sun, although they need a lot more water. I wonder if the sun's intensity is less in the summer months because of all the moisture in the air?

They're still blooming here, although as I said above, summer weather has held on way too long this fall. Our first night with a low temp below 60 will happen this coming week. Usually it happens in October.

The Shampoo Gingers are in dappled shade under my oak trees, and as long as they get a ton of water they bloom like crazy.

ardesia said:Isn't that unusual, my turmeric is still very green with no signs of going dormant. During our mild winters it stays green.

Maybe we have different varieties?

My A. obesums started budding again...they like the cooler weather of this time of year...not so hot and humid.

David, I put my gingers on the patio. They get full sun until noon and then pass into the bright shade of a tree. I do have them grouped together, so they kind of shelter each other. I often burn foliage in the spring when they first go out, but ignore it and leave them there. I just don't have the patience to move them slowly into brighter light since I have so many pots to move. The shoots on the plants in the spring when they first go out may not make it anyway. Sometimes they are weak from being inside. They are quickly replaced with new sturdy shoots. New shoots acclimate as they emerge and are adaptable to quite a range of exposure.

I have done better with my gingers since I started growing them 'hard and fast' since I only have May through September to grow them well. I put them out in the yard in May and fertilize them well every couple of weeks and I water mine daily during warm weather. They grow fast and send up several series of shoots that bloom in succession. The speed of repeat. depends on the variety, of course. I don't find any benefit from babying the first shoots that go outside since they are so quickly replaced with newer, fatter shoots that will bear the blooms. They have a growth habit like Cannas, though they don't like quite as much sun. If you push them, they will repeat quicker and keep blooming until frost.

One year I had a huge pot of Anne Bishop that I kept ignoring and not moving to its permanent location. It was in full sun except for the first two hours of the day. The weak, winter shoots burned up quickly and some really fat ones came up. I watered it daily and left it there all season. The plant got acclimated to the sun and had healthy growth and bloomed at three feet tall on every shoot, which was neat. I haven't repeated that, though.

You may not want to grow them like I do, but I find the more sun, water, and fertilizer, up to a point, the better mine do. I will say that greenii and rubrum definitely like less sun than other varieties, so watch your exposure if you get them. Also, if you use a peat-based potting mix like Miracle Gro, don't overwater in the winter or you may have problems with rot. Been there, done that. I get used to watering freely in the summer and you need to cut back in low temps.

Good luck!

Bob - Nice Pics!! Thanks for all the info! You are filling in a lot of holes and really helping.

WRT sun - guess they will handle more sun than I thought. Perhaps I can find some better locations next year, but mine seemed to do pretty good on my screened in porch where the screen provided some filtering. Otherwise, the were receiving light from 9 - 4. It is on the South side.

Earlier you said that you keep them over winter in a cool greenhouse. This is heated but you keep it at 50? I have a small "pretend" GH that I use from mid April - early November. The rest of the time it is freezing in there.

Couple other questions. How often do you divide and repot?

Have you ever tried grocery store ginger? Mine is doing quite well, but nearly as good of my two ornamentals.

Cheers