Ha! Sandal tans, me too!
And also me too, not able to deal well with humid heat. I've been grateful that the weather here has been mostly sweet and relatively mild this summer.
There may be a better place to post this but a challenge I am taking up right now is to locate and grow some white ginger lilies! I believe I have identified the variety I *think* I can grow here -- it is Tai Monarch and is called a hardy ginger. Most places I look say it's hardy to zone 7b, and one guy I read a comment from said he successfully overwintered in in New York. Apparently the key to its winter survival is letting the frost-killed foliage stay on the ground or else heavily mulching to insulate the rhizomes.
Anyway.
I have yet to locate a source of the rhizomes! So if anyone knows of one I'd appreciate the tip. I thought I'd found a place, in NC, which grows and sells numerous varieties of ginger, but though the search led me there, their actual site had no listings for this particular ginger.
(I have experience with growing it in coastal North Carolina several years ago which is why I have hopes Richmond might be possible for it also.)