I have lots of these, and different types of ginger around my house in the garden. Here, they like dappled shade and lots of water. The variegated shell gingers are slower growers than most of my other gingers in the garden, but also they're more cold tolerant. The other gingers die right back to the ground if it gets really cold but not those Alpinias.
It sure would help us to help you if you could post pictures of your plant each time you have questions. It makes it a lot more interesting, too.
