Where in the United States are you? Zone 9 means little except that you have a larger selection of plants that will not winter kill.
What is the soil these plants are growing in like? Most everything I have found about red button gingers is that they are plants of the wet tropical forest.

i am in central west florida (sarasota-bradenton) and the soil is heavy with sand but a good mix of organic matter and topsoil has been added as well. Now we did have a frost here about 2 months ago but im pretty sure they already had started looking this way before

This post was edited by myro54 on Mon, Mar 10, 14 at 3:47