It may not get enough actual heat for a long enough period.

I have some gingers sent to me by a friend and one of them has leaves that are like two feet tall but no flowers. Would the answer be the same as above? It seems late and none of mine are blooming.

Carla

How long does it need to flower? We had a hot summer here.

Thanks!

HI- When we lived in S. Jersey (zone 6), we grew butterfly gingers in pots on the deck. They bloomed late in the year- in September/October. Just be patient- they should bloom.- Gwenn

Thanks, Gwenn. I figured that gingers (Hedychiums and a Curcuma in my case) were late bloomers. Here's hoping they bloom for me before the frosts arrive. If they need lots of summer heat, I may be out of luck, because our summer NIGHTS are never very warm (I think the hottest night this year was in the mid-70's) even if the days are over 100 (we had almost a month of that).

Actually its a lot more complicated than that. You can't compare hedychiums to curcumas because they are 2 entirely different types of ginger.

I can't tell you how they will act in MD or NC because I don't grow them there, but here in No Central FL where I live, hedychiums routinely freeze to the ground almost every winter, re-emerge in early March, grow to 6-9 ft by May, start flowering in late May early June and continue to flower until first frost (usually late November/early December). Hedychiums, if they did not freeze due to the natural limitations of our USDA zone 8B, would be EVERGREEN.

Curcumas, on the other hand, are NOT evergreen. Even in their natural tropical Asian climates, they are deciduous, and their mechanism of re-emergence is NOT just heat but the rainy season that occurs in the Asian Old World tropics. This rainy season corresponds nicely to the advent of the end of winter and the start of the warm and rainy season in the American Neo Tropics and Sub Tropics (which starts here in No Central FL in late March/April). Curcumas are divided into 2 types: they are either Spring blooming or Fall blooming. WHen yours blooms depends on what type they are. Inodora and Scarlet Fever, for example, are Spring bloomers; Sulee's Rainbow and the variegated Emperor curcuma (petiolata) are Fall bloomers, etc etc.

Curcumas don't necessarily depend on cumulative heat to bloom (although they will NOT bloom reliably in climates that are too cold). Hedychiums are more dependent on cumulative heat to bloom.

If you are getting a lot of good leaf growth and no blooms, it might be worthwhile to try SUPERPHOSPHATE to get your plants to bloom. Use a high phosphate (high middle number, like 10-50-10) fertilizer weekly after your plants start to grow during your warm season. Less Nitrogen and more Phosphate MAY help you out in the presence of adequate heat and light, to produce LESS new growth and MORE blooms.

Thanks, Bihai! I will do that. I hope they are going to bloom.

I am curious as to WHY ginger blooms at all since it propagates thru the rhizome. I am glad they do, very pretty! But - why?

I don't think it's really about hot heat; it rarely gets above 80 here, and nights are in the 70s or lower during the summer. Yet the white ginger blooms like the weed it is!

Amaranthim, plants bloom so they can cross-breed with other plants of their species, creating hybrid vigor. If they only propagated through the rhizome, they would all be identical clones, and would all respond the same way to an environmental problem (bugs, weather). The minor differences in seedlings increases the chance of survival of the species.

My understanding is that it takes two years for ginger to bloom. My alpinia zerumbet stuck to this schedule. I have since got more flowers each spring.

more light and heat

I've often read comments about ginger rhizomes having to "mature" and not disturbing them, in order to bloom. Has anyone experienced blooms emerging from rhizomes that have "matured" over 2 years, and after they have been divided? My ginger rhizomes seem to be growing and about to burst the pot, but I'm afraid to divide them for fear that they will have to wait another 2+ year more cycle in order to get them to produce flowers....

I've got a butterfly ginger, and I've had it for at least 4 years now. No blooms. I had to cut off some of the rhizomes because they got too much water during the winter. So far nothing. I threatened mine and I gave it some 'old grow' fertilizer in case it needs it. So far, I don't see any bloom spike! I better get mad at it. I told it that I have plenty of plants that are vying for it's spot near the window. I also did this with a banana plant that is going to be booted out or given away soon too.

I have butterfly ginger growing in a spot where it gets filtered sunlight most of the day and 2-3 hours or direct sunlight late afternoon. Summer's are long with plenty of heat, although not too many 70 degree nights. It didn't bloom for 8 years until I read here that I should try some nitrogen. I gave it some Miracle Gro soluble and within 3 weeks it started blooming. It didn't bloom on a lot of the stems/leaves, perhaps 5 out of 20-30. The same thing happened this year, although it bloomed so late that the November cold weather kept some of the blooms from opening all the way.

Does anyone know how many hours of hot weather is necessary? When I lived at the foot of this canyon (I now live in the upper reaches) near the beach (Malibu, Ca) with much cooler weather, the same butterfly ginger bloomed reliably in August every year, with no fertilizer. Up here it's now blooming sparsely in Sept/Oct and there is much more heat.

Seems I had two gingers quite a few years back, a larger growing spiral ginger, Costus barbatus , which has flowered indoors in late fall once brought in for the winter, though usually only if the days are sunny while it's adjusting to indoors and it's getting enough light, and for some reason no blooms this fall , though it grew much has it has for years during the summer , with robust large new canes from which the blooms are produced, and the other I guess a dwarf costus perhaps that died perhaps from over watering in winter . I must say though I tend to love large plants even for indoors , those gingers of many varieties that produce running rhizomes from which new growth sprouts to produce blooms each year, have such incredibly tough and rampant rhizomes that make frequent division or thinning when in containers quite necessary for dependable blooms, least the plants become terribly rootbound in just a few years. Have to say , the last time I decided to divide and thin the Costus barbatus , it had cracked the plastic pot , and I struggled to cut through the rhizomes to thin it using a sawing motion with a large serrated knife , and perhaps a small chain saw or Loppers would have succeeded much more easily and hence it's not been thinned or divided in years , though it needs that , just considering the grunts and groans the last time I divided it.

I planted a store-bought ginger last year and didn't expect blooms since I read they wouldn't normally bloom the first year. I'm in SE Texas and we have a good long summer and I planted the ginger in a planter with a sand/organic mix and in the shade of a fruit tree. It grew like gangbusters and bloomed at the end of the first summer.