Ginger ?

Has anyone had luck growing ginger (zingibar) outside? My Western Garden Book gives it a Zone 9 (but that's the Sunset zones, which always confuse me). Per PlantFiles, it grows in Zone 8a and up. Sounds like it may be invasive, but that seems to be coming fromt those in the warmer areas. Might add a tropical look to the culinary section of my herb garden.

I grew it while living in Hawaii. It is not hardy here, although you could try overwintering it inside.

There are lots of Zingibers, many are listed as zone 8. Ginger zingiber officinale is probably the most used culinary ginger and I have it growing here in Texas zone 8. The one thing you would need to watch for is staying too wet during the Winter months, raised bed will fix that problem.

The rough equivalent of your Z8 is Sunset Z5.
Sunset Zone 9 is marked by a longer growing season, higher summer heat & lows to about 25° or so. The culinary Gingers go dormant during the winter. And as Ken has stated, it will resent wet/cold winter weather. Mine were in well-drained soil in raised beds & covered with mulch/leaves/etc - they mushed. That winter we saw lows of 20°. I would not hesitate to grow it, BH, but you might want to try it in a large container & bring it indoors for the winter. The Texas Z8 is much warmer than our Z8 here - i think you'd see better growth here during its 2nd year.

Thanks for the input. I think I will try it in a pot half-sunk in the midst of my culinary section. I can then bring it inside or perhaps just in the barn for winter protection, and also keep it from spreading. I'll try to remember to report back how it works out.

It's a fun plant to grow - it was too easy in Hawaii!
If you have the space, try an experiment - plant in a container & in ground, too. It's our unpredictable weather that tends to run roughshod on anything quasi-borderline.
the sunset zones are good in some respects, but mostly beneficial for those on the West coast. I don't use them anymore, other than to ascertain subtle distinctions between neighbouring areas that are considered different zones (like Seattle vs Kent..)
Also - a maritime climate does not build up heat units like many other areas do. That's why it is difficult to compare all Z6 areas or Z8 or what have you. Our typical "heat" (80°-85°) is mid-July into August & maybe some of September if we're lucky, whereas other areas have their summer from May through September. June tends to be cool & disappointing. The bright side is that we can grow some crops longer due to that same cool climate.

Texas zone 8 is much warmer during the Summer not during the Winter. Gingers like it a little cooler than our Summers can give them. As far as Winters go we are very close to the PNW. The last cold spell we got down to 9F. We are in the piney woods of east Texas and we sometimes get as much rain in the Winter as you, El Nino. My DW is from the Portland area and just could not take all those cloudy days. She says she is solar powered. We went to Portland in 1997 and I was taken back by the amount of people who Garden. IN Texas the love of gardening was lost in the new generation.

"she is solar-powered" ! That's a great line, kenboy
We truly are sun-deprived up here - when the sun comes out, so do all the white legs. But it always feels so good, even when it's chilly out - much better than drizzle.

Ken, I would love to hear your opinion about gardening being lost to this new generation. I was in a similar discussion about this very topic a couple weeks ago. Interesting subject...

Yes, the newest generation can not tell you where a turnip comes from but they can tell you who Britney Spears is dating. I am 57 now and do not consider myself old but I can not work all day in the sun anymore and if I do I am not worth anything when I get home. I have had 14 helpers in the last three years, the oldest being in their early thirty. Out of 14 helpers, only one could keep up with me.
One did not know the difference between a Morning Dove's coo and an Owl's hoot. We have a small nursery at our home and tried to get wholesale vegetable plants to sell and could not get them, they were all sold out. With this economy lots of people are growing gardens for the first time and they are clueless. If there is a silver lining to the current economic situation, it is that many people may learn where a Turnip comes from.

Well, kenboy, I think us elders have an obligation to pass knowledge down to this new generation about the turnips. In a kind way. I have been an occasional mentor to a young woman in her late 20s in her attempts to start a home vegetable garden. She is clueless, but enthusiastic. I don't see her often, perhaps every 3 weeks or so. Last summer, she and her husband somehow got hung up with designing and building a fence to surround it - to the point they never did actually get any seeds or plants in the ground. I kept encouraging her to just plant something, anything, but the focus was on the fence. Sigh. I'm hoping this season the fence is built and she can move forward with seeds. I continue to encourage her.

I suppose if the vegies were digital, we'd be hearing a lot more about them!
Seriously, I find it alarming that people don't have a clue about how to be more self-sufficient. The potential for a negative outcome in the face of a disaster is huge.
Growing is not hard & so rewarding. But i suppose that is a difficult concept to grasp if it requires getting one's hands dirty, LOL! Might get dirt on the iphone/laptop/or any of the"information portals" so in vogue...

I have a ginger that comes back every year - Elizabeth, I think, - so it's root hardy. But I've never seen a bloom. I was hopeful last year since we had such a hot summer and it got fairly tall,, but nope. Nothing.

aha! Elizabeth is a hedychium, or Kahili ginger and they can take a 2-3 years to bloom, as can the Alpinias.
I was speaking of Zinziber officinale. It was my understanding that for culinary purposes, one allows the rhizomes to develop fully in order to harvest some & keep the plant going. This occurs easily if one lives where the lows are above 40°, and lets them be for 2 growing seasons.

I did not have luck last time around - in ground or container, both with mulch/protection.
But being the goat I am, I will try again.
Where I will overwinter is a concern. (Since when has that stopped me?)

Well, even though I cannot eat my 'elizabeth' she is way older than 2, so I fear she will not ever flower for me. I just let her live anyway, though. She lives among the cannas. Maybe someday. Who knows?

Pixydish, Hedychiums like Elizabeth likes a lot of sun, which I know is a problem in the PNW. If you have a real sunny area that may help.

I planted a chunk from the grocery store, I assume must be officinale. It's coming up in its pot on the back porch, and I'm pretty excited about that. Next stop is in the herb garden somewhere. I'm trying to be smarter this year and have planted several half-hardy herbs in pots to try to overwinter in a more protected fashion. Ginger will be one of them.

Oooh that sounds like a great idea - I might have to try that next time I get a ginger root in my CSA veggie box. I bought a hardy ginger (Cautleya spicata 'Robusta') at a plant sale last summer, and I'm so excited that it has made it thru the winter and is poking up out of the soil right now. This one is a member of the Zinziber family, although it is not the culinary ginger. It's really pretty though growing next to my pond.

bonehead I planted some store bought as well during the winter. It's doing well although I will remove it and put it in it's own pot for winter. It's sad I have to wait a full year before it really does something, or so I've read.

Tiki, we can compare notes after next winter to see how they fare. Good luck. I use tons of ginger when I cook and would love to have a ready source.

I bought a Kahili ginger last year. It bloomed in September. Now I have a bunch of little babies coming up. If only the rain would go away and the sun would shine, they'd be tall.!!!

Welcome, otterear. We hope we'll see more of you on the threads!

My store bought ginger, which has been sitting outside in a pot since spring began, is producing grass!! I'm not sure the poor dear will survive my vacation. (or any of my other plants for that matter.)

Mine has a healthy looking sprout as well. I have it coddled in a pot on the front deck where it gets daily attention. I am hoping it does well and plan to bring it in for the winter. Mine is from the grocery store as well.

Bonehead, what size pot are you using? I'm trying to figure out what size pot would be best. The one it's in is too big and I want to use it next year for another reason. I saw a lovely square pot on sale at the store.

Tiki, mine is in a 6" ceramic pot which happened to be on my back porch when I walked out with ginger in hand (i.e., no advance thought). It may well be too small but for the time being it is doing the job. My ginger growth is about 3" tall now and very healthy. I will likely keep it in this pot through the summer and bring it inside for winter, hoping it will make an interesting house plant until next spring. I'll see at that time if (a) it is still alive and (b) it may need repotting. What is yours in?

It has been almost a month since my last post. I have 5 babies Kahili Gingers that are now teenagers. They are almost 24 inches tall. we are finally getting our summer weather so I expected a growth spurt. I just wish I didn't have to wait til September to find out if they will bloom or not.

Mine are in a 20 inch plastic pot with some shallots but they can't remain in there. I found a nice square pot that will do. I will be adding another chunk of ginger too. I'd like to switch to ceramic but I'm sort of a weakling and I'm not sure I can lift the pot once it's full lol
I'll decide on the container when I get back from vacation.

I've tried over and over to grow culinary ginger. It starts to grow and gets up to 2 feet high sometimes, and then dies. I never realized it was probably going dormant for the winter! My Kahili gingers are huge monsters outdoors. I love it when they bloom! Until I read this thread, I hadn't put the two together in my mind, duh! The Kahili's go dormant here in the winter and all of their foliage dies off. I've got a culinary ginger being coddled in the house right now. I adsolutely love cooking with ginger!! I am going to put it outdoors where the Kahili's are see what happens this time. The only concern I have, is that I read the culinary ginger wants to be in deep shade. All of this time, I thought it was moving mine into pots and a sunnier location in the kitchen that was killing them. They usually start to sprout in shallow bowl I keep ginger in when I bring it home from the market. I keep just enough water in the bowl to keep the bottom of the root moist. And the bowl is under a cabinet in the dark. So I am going to watching to see what happens to your ginger bonehead. I am going to be "rooting" for your success ;-)

Update on my ginger, September 2nd:

I took my ginger out in late July or early August and sat it into a pot indoors along with some little left over pieces of ginger. I put it out of direct sun and made a note to ask the gal watching my cats to gently water it once. I forgot to tell her and I totally forgot about it. Fast forward today ... I noticed the pot and figured it was probably dead, not having received water for about a month. I walked over to dump the pot (doing pot clean up) and there on the top of the soil was about 4 inches of "grass" ...

That was unexpected. I figured since I lost nearly all of my spider plants that I surely lost the ginger too.

otterear, I have several huge Kahili Gingers and they are all in bloom right now. I grow those out in the full sun and neglect them totally every year. Those guys are tough! But they are not edible ginger. My edible ginger is growing. Like usual. It has a shoot about a foot tall and now, as always, the ends are shriveling up instead of unfolding further......still don't know what I am doing wrong. This time it is in the same place indoors where a coffee tree, a hoya, and two big purple gloxinias are happy campers. And it ain't participating in the party.

Leaves are shriveled up??? make sure there isn't a ginger 'bug" within the plant. My kahili are still "there". Not much growth since I last wrote. If they bloom this year it will be amazing. I've read the Pacific Northwest tropical growers are experiencing "slow growth " in all plants. My trachies have maybe grown a couple inches. MY bananas are normal, My CANNAS have gone crazy!
I don't know anything about culinary ginger. Except if you buy them at the store they may not reproduce. I was told to get them from farmers market ...

The Kahili Ginger are fine, not shriveled at all. And they are all blooming right now. I never have any problem with them. It is the very ends of the culinary ginger that are shriveling. This is what always happens to them in my house. They grow and then suddenly die. I was lead to believe it was because I usually try to plant them when they begin to grow and that I had been mistaken to move them out of the deep shade and intot the light. The outdoor Kahili are flourishing in the full sun. Just would like to hear how other peoples efforts to grow culinary ginger are going. It is a trek into town to get groceries and it would be nice to be able to grow some out here.

PedricksCorner mine seems to enjoy being neglected.

When I first planted the ginger I had it right in front of the sliding glass door to get lots of light. That door faces the south but the deck it leads to is covered. It grew about an inch out of the soil then turned brown. Then I moved it out on the deck and it did the same thing.

Now I'm neglecting it. It's in an 8 inch pot in the corner of my dining room on a kitchen cart. The nearest window is 4 feet away and the only light it gets is what the vertical blinds let through. I watered it at some point in late july early august and then watered it again 2 days ago. It's growing like mad lol and I didn't even notice the growth until I went to throw it away a few days ago.

Thanks tikipod! That confirms it for me. I am going to put it in a dark corner and neglect it! I would imagine that since ginger has such big thick roots, that they are designed to handle being dry.... I just can't let it stay under the kitchen cabinets because it gets too tall there. Then I move it and they always die. I have a back room that is somewhat bright but never has any direct sunshine. I'll let you know what happens ;-D

My grocery store ginger is now about 10" with 3 strong stalks and looking fairly healthy, with some minor insect damage. Moving it inside for the winter, will keep it on the kitchen table (east exposure) so I give it daily attention. Crossing fingers...

Keep us posted! I am determined to be able to grow this stuff. There are a few things that just escape me. Today at the Santa Cruz County Fair they had a stunning display of Dahlias. And I had to confess to everyone that I just cannot grow Dahlias..... I love them, but I kill them....

Some plants are just not compatible with yourself or your land. I live in rainy Washington and can't grow a rhododendron to save my soul...

I feel better now :-)
So I'll confess that for many years I killed the yellow, orange, and pink calla lilies people would give me as gifts. Until I turned my back on them and neglected them..... all of a sudden they all began to bloom! So now that is what they get and they surprise me every year with a show.

If I had the means, I'd cover the hillside that slopes down into the ravine below, with deciduous azaleas in every color I could find. There is a place out in the hills here, with about 200 feet of them and it is just stunning in the spring time.

Here's my ginger, now safe inside for the winter. I am curious about the two different types of stalks. The ones on the left are long and strappy, and the one on the right is perhaps a flowering stalk?

Nice!!! You give me hope! The main stalk on mine is all shriveled and dry, but it is putting out new green shoots. So I am not giving up :-D