Ok...I will throw away the pride and cry ignorance!!!! Here I get my orders of Ginger...I'm so excited...getting large pots to start them indoors...mixing up a decent soil...AND...
I find myself looking at them as if they're alien creatures....OMG - which end up? I know I'm suppose to plant them 1-2 in. below the soil but the suckers have roots everywhere - I can't tell how to bury them...vertically? horizontally? Funny isn't it!!! Believe me, if you could've seen me surrounded by my mess in the middle of my living room floor...turning the rhizomes this way...that way...HELP please!!!
Which end up?
Oh dear, I know th e feeling! What you normally have with a rhizome type ginger is a thick thing like a fat sausage, and some roots hanging off. You should also be able to see some sort of a roundish bump that is trying to push a new shoot out of the top. The rhizome is best laid horizontally, with the bump facing upwards. Don't put it too far under in a pot, you can always top it up later. If you can't really see a bump, there should be a cut off stem where the old growth has been cut, put that at around ground level.
Some gingers, like Kaempferia rotunda have several fat tubers coming from a central 'stem' rather like a dahlia tuber. If you have those, they should be planted with the tubers pointing down, the stem at the top near the surface.
Good luck!
Wallaby - thanks much. I just stuck them in there (shallow) laying horizontally as you'd suggested. Bump? Have no idea..but I marked all of them with those tacky white markers. How long should it take before I see something "coming up?" That way if I don't see anything within "X" amt. of time I'll just dig a bit and take a look at them. :)
Chantell, try to keep them in a fairly warm place, gingers can be sensitve to cold and wet for a start if not rooted. Don't overdo the watering until they get their roots going well. One I started off last year did take quite a long time to shoot, perhaps from late February well into summer, but that can vary.
I left mine in a cold greenhouse, it was hedychium ellipticun which is quite hardy, but it was very cold and I think I was lucky. Another one not so hardy rotted. It was my own fault really! But space can be limited inside with other things. Better to squash them inside than lose them.