
It is not the ginger that is so popular for culinary purposes, but it is the most popular for home gardens in the West. Kahili ginger, Hedychium gardnerianum, is so vigorous and easy to grow that it has potential to be invasive in ideal situations. Fortunately, it does not produce many of its sticky seeds locally. It therefore migrates primarily by dispersing rhizomes, which are not noxiously fast.
The delightfully fragrant bloom begins late in summer, and will finish soon. As many as forty small pale yellow and red flowers radiate from each cylindrical floral truss. Blooms stand neatly vertical, even if the stems supporting them lean. As cut flowers, they last only for a few days. Deadheading after bloom eliminates unwanted seed (if that is a concern), and unclutters the tidy foliage below.
However, with or without deadheading, the lush foliage is only temporary after bloom. It deteriorates as the weather cools through autumn. Cutting the herbaceous canes to the ground before they get too unsightly will expose some of the thick rhizomes. New canes will grow a few feet tall next spring and summer. On the canes, each leaf extends in the opposite direction of the leaf below it.
That is one ginger I do not have and need to get. Everyone does ask me if I eat my gingers, but I just grow them for the flowers. I have a very large bed of gingers and cutting them down is my fall task.
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This is the common ginger in this region, because it does so well. In Southern California, other gingers are more popular. However, the culinary gingers are strangely uncommon in home gardens.
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This Kahili looks like a glass sculpture by Chihuly.
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Oh, don’t be silly. It’s not so frilly. It’s all quilly, and looks nothing like related canna lily. The foliage looks fake like Milli Vanilli.
. . . okay, it sort of does.
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