Peacock Ginger 'Grande'

Blooms and foliage not seen at the same time on this ginger--2" light purple blooms emerge first. Then followed by beautiful silver and g...Read Morereen variegated foliage with burgundy undersides; about 40 days after blooms. Good for growing in zones 8b-10; height is 2' on foliage (much shorter, inches high on flowers); width 18". This ginger must have excellent drainage in the winter if grown in the ground, otherwise the rhizomes will rot.

I hold my breath on it every spring; but it is worth it.

I belong to a Koi and Watergarden club, and every year we take a field trip to a specialty ginger nursery near Gainesville, Florida, as o...Read Moreur members all agree gingers make decorative additions near ponds. Last year quite a few members really splurged on gingers, and all the gingers were planted in the ground late last summer, only to be confronted by the longest, wettest and coldest winter here in Northcentral Florida for the past 100 years. Of course every single ginger plant froze to the ground.

At every meeting this Spring members would anxiously ask each other if their gingers had emerged yet. Well, it took awhile, but most of the gingers did survive---they just emerged very late, and a lot of them have been blooming profusely here in mid Summer.

I remember when I lived in St. Petersburg, zone 9b, in the late 1980's, it was thought that we were on the edge of gingers' most northern zone. But now that I've moved up a whole zone to 8b, people here in 2003 think we are on the edge of ginger's most northern zone. So gardeners and plant professionals either underestimated gingers' cold hardiness in the first place, or the plants are aclimitizing over the years. So now the big question seems to be "How cold can you go?".

This is a wonderful ginger. In the spring flowers appear out of the bare ground, the foliage then appears. This is the largest flowering ...Read MoreKaempferia in the genuis. Majestic and upright the leaves have a maroon underside, the leaves are about a foot long.