Try Roscoea and Cautleya. They are high altitude tropical and temperate gingers. Many people in places like southern Florida who would claim to be able to grow any ginger have little if any luck with these. The reason is that their natural habitat is usually cool, even in the height of the growing season. Sound a little like the SF or Coastal CA? The high altitude Roscoeas even have significant amounts of snow covering them in the winter, but they don't require severe winters in cultivation.

What does these plants in is hot summers. That's why the southerners don't grow them. They are much smaller than your typical Hedychium however (they are usually a few inches to a couple feet tall). In terms of ordering them I think there are some mail order places in Oregon and Washington that have them. For the reasons mentioned above (i.e. location), the normal ginger sources tend not to have them.

I think some other Hedychiums would work, but I am not sure which are best offhand.

-Kyle

Two good places in the Bay area for seeing gingers, and finding out which ones flower well are Strybing Arboretum in SF and the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. I have been to both several times, most recently just last Sept. Several Hedychiums are grown (and bloom) at Strybing, including H. gardnerianum as you state, the H. densum types ('Assam Orange' for example), and several others I saw in Sept. with no tags - appear to be H. flavum or H. coronarium hybrids. Berkeley has H. spicatum, H. villosum, a beautiful stand of Cautleya spicata, several Zingibers and Roscoea cauteloides.

I have photos of several of these on my website at the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: All About Gingers

Thanks for the great website. So many pictures!
Thanks again, Kyle