Autumn Gingers
Posted: October 20, 2021 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Automatic Gardening, butterfly ginger, Costus barbatus, gingers, Globba Schomburgkii, Gulf Coast gardening, Hedychium coronarium, Hedychium hybrid "Pink V", Hedychium thysiforme, shampoo ginger, spiral ginger, Subtropical Gardening, Yellow Dancing Lady Ginger, Zingiber zerumber 15 Comments
I was on vacation this summer when my gingers bloomed, missing the jewels of my garden. Thankfully, the gingers must have missed me too and put on some end of summer flowers. Above is the white Maximum Ginger that formed a pretty wreath of flowers around its cone.
Pink V, which doesn’t look very pink to me, has bloomed in two of my beds.
White Butterfly Ginger, which smells divine, was the first ginger of my collection given to me by my mother-in-law.
Shampoo Ginger will turn dark red and it was actually used to wash hair. I haven’t tried it.
The Yellow Dancing Lady was coming to the end of its blooming season, but I find the bulbils interesting. As the rabbits have disappeared from my yard, I have colonies of them coming up everywhere. Like most gingers, they need light shade in this zone and some did not pick the correct place to grow and got sunburned.
The Spiral Ginger struggled for awhile, but has really grown and reproduced during the last few years. Even though I missed the big show of blooms, I am pleased that a few gingers bloomed late for my enjoyment.
Attentive Gardening
Posted: May 25, 2020 Filed under: Gardening | Tags: African Blood Lily, Alpinia zerumbet, Aristolochia fimbriata, Automatic Gardening, Costus barbatus, Gardening, Gulf Coast gardening, Peter Pan Agapanthus, Rain Lilies, Scadoxus multiflorus, Shell Ginger, Southern Gardening, spiral ginger, subtropical climate, Subtropical Gardening, Year-round gardening, Zephyranthes 22 Comments
With rain, you get Rain Lilies and this year’s display was spectacular. The couple of bulbs I bought years ago that just sat around doing nothing, have come alive and planted themselves all over the yard. (click on a photo for slideshow)
Aristolochia fimbriata, is the third kind of Dutchman’s Pipe that I grow. It has tiny flowers and the nurseryman said it would attract butterflies. I’ll wait and see.
I had to add another photo of the spiral ginger. The flower is hidden behind the leaves and I enjoy peeking in everyday to see its progress.
My sweet little Peter Pan Agapnathus has made several flower heads this year.
After two years of hard winters, the Shell Ginger finally bloomed.
The African Blood Lily has done extremely well and seems to like our gumbo soil. It makes huge blooms every year and has even multiplied. A mild winter and an attentive gardener (me staying home) has resulted in a late Spring full of blooms.
After the Rains
Posted: May 11, 2020 Filed under: Gardening | Tags: Black Eyed Susan, cigar plant, Costus barbatus, Cuphea ignata, Gardenia, Hyacinth Bean, Kaempferia rotunda, Polka Dot Plant, Resurrection Lily Ginger, Salvia coccinea 21 Comments
The Spiral Ginger, Costus barbatus, looked luscious in the morning after an overnight storm. The rain made the red flower shine.
The Spiral Ginger has not bloomed in awhile, so it was nice to see two of them blooming. I tried to get a photo showing how the leaves form around the stem in a spiral.
As long as I was taking pictures, I checked out some other bloomers. The Black Eyed Susan pops up in different locations around the yard. This one is self-sowed.
The Salvia coccinea also reseeds on its own and is loaded with flowers to the delight of pollinators and hummingbirds.
I was surprised to see the Hyacinth Bean had suddenly flowered.
Another surprise was finding a Resurrection Lily Ginger, Kaempferia rotunda, had bloomed. The flower comes before the leaves. It is a pretty little thing.
Cuphea ignata which is commonly called Cigar plant has been blooming profusely and is a hummingbird favorite. I saw that this plant sold is as an annual up north where it does not get very big with the short growing season. Mine is a perennial and grows nearly 5 feet tall and spreads easily to make new plants.
The Gardenia is so heavy with delicious scented flowers, it is bent to the ground.
And now a garden mystery, which I love. I found my Pink Polka Dot plants growing nearly 30 feet from where they were planted. How did they get there? Something to ponder. Of course, I love a volunteer and they will be moved back to the original bed.
Early Blooming Gingers
Posted: July 11, 2019 Filed under: Gardening | Tags: Automatic Gardening, Costus barbatus, curcuma parviflora, Gardening, globba winitii, Gulf Coast gardening, Hedychium hybred "Pink V", Southern Gardening, subtropical climate, Subtropical Gardening, White Angel Ginger, Year-round gardening 20 Comments
Gingers enjoy our hot humid summers and don’t start to bloom until the heat is really on. I was surprised to see that the Pink V had been very busy reproducing. There were about 14 stalks blooming that had multiplied from the single original plant. The Curcuma, White Angel, is one the hardiest gingers, never failing to come back year after year. It multiplies and each clump gets bigger with age. During those horribly hot days of summer when many plants stop blooming, is it always a pleasure to see the tropical flowers of the gingers.
Click on the photos to enlarge and see the captions.
Around the Garden
Posted: May 24, 2016 Filed under: Gardening | Tags: African Blood Lily, Alpinia zerumbet, Automatic Gardening, Costus barbatus, Gardening, Gulf Coast gardening, Rain Lilies, Scadoxus multiflorus, Splt Leaf Philodendron, Subtropical Gardening, Variegated Ginger, wildfloweres, Year-round gardening 7 CommentsHere are some photos of flowers currently blooming around the garden. The first batch is from the wildflower bed. They represent plants from farther west that grow in drier terrain.
The next few shots are the exotics. These plants enjoy wet weather and are from the tropics. The shiny pearl buds are from Variegated Ginger (Alpinia zerumbet).
Hot colors make this ginger, Costus barbatus, really stand out. The red bracts and yellow flowers are waxy to the touch. I had to look up its name, as the plant had traveled away from its marker.
This intriguing plant is the Blood Lily. Its head is actually nearly 200 individual flowers. Happily the bulb has reproduced and there are more each year. Read more at this previous post.
An interesting flower is that of the Split Leaf Philodendron. At night it scents the air very pleasantly. When it is done blooming, the flower rots on the plant. A fun fact is that there are over 489 species of Philodendron. You can’t go wrong calling a leafy tropical plant a Philodendron!
Lastly is a garden favorite, the Rain Lily. Magically, these sweet pink lilies bloom only after a rainfall. Yes, they can tell the difference between real rainwater and sprinkler water.
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