Yep, I think this winter I will perform a little more strategic surgery on the oak branch above mine, to gain a bunch more sun time.
I have a whole lot of gingers coming along, and as I started taking photos I thought I should try to find them all: Zingiber collinsii must be my favorite, for the very handsome corduroy foliage. It does put up lots of funny little coral flower scapes with tiny cream flowers, too.
Even though it's been so warm through April, I guess there were enough cool nights to discourage my Kaempferia 'Peacock Ginger' as it has just come up in the last two weeks. Pretty little mauve flowers are only open in the mornings:
My Alpinia is almost finished blooming but I couldn't resist this bee making a last effort:
The Costus scaber are way too tall now that they're getting regular water, again, funny flowers but nice foliage and the interesting corkscrew style stems:
Variegated Hawaiian Rainbow Costus is getting a bit undependable, losing its variegation quite often now.
Another spiral ginger, Cheilocostus (now, I forget the rest of the name but it has pretty white flowers, coming soon)
Last one, Zingiber zerumbet, the Pinecone or Shampoo ginger (hmm, needs some fert . . ) won't put up its cones for another few weeks. It really likes lots and lots of water - the best it ever did was after we had TS Debbie dump 15in. of rain in 4 days a couple of years ago.
