Other Names:  Red Tower Ginger

Description:

A beautiful clumping plant with narrowly oval deep green foliage; bright yellow tubular flowers emerge from red bracts that form a tall cone; easy to grow, flowering primarily in summer; excellent for patio pots, or massed as a screen

Ornamental Features

Spiral Ginger features showy spikes of yellow tubular flowers with red bracts at the ends of the stems from late spring to early fall. The flowers are excellent for cutting. Its attractive oval leaves remain dark green in color with curious grayish green undersides throughout the year.

Landscape Attributes

Spiral Ginger is an herbaceous evergreen tropical plant with an upright spreading habit of growth. Its wonderfully bold, coarse texture can be very effective in a balanced garden composition.

This is a relatively low maintenance plant, and is best cleaned up in early spring before it resumes active growth for the season. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Spiral Ginger is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Mass Planting
• Hedges/Screening
• General Garden Use
• Naturalizing And Woodland Gardens
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

This plant is native to the tropics and prefers growing in moist environments with evenly warm conditions all year round. In our climate, it is usually grown as an outdoor annual in the garden or in a container. If you want it to survive the winter, it can be brought in to the house and provided with special care, and then returned to the garden the following season. In its preferred tropical habitat, it can grow to be around 7 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 6 feet. However, when grown as an annual or when overwintered indoors, it can be expected to perform differently, and its exact height and spread will depend on many factors; you may wish to consult with our experts as to how it might perform in your specific application and growing conditions.

This plant does best in partial shade to shade. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. This plant is a heavy feeder that requires frequent fertilizing throughout the growing season to perform at its best. It is not particular as to soil pH, but grows best in rich soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This species is not originally from North America. It can be propagated by multiplication of the underground bulbs.

Spiral Ginger is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor pots and containers. With its upright habit of growth, it is best suited for use as a 'thriller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination; plant it near the center of the pot, surrounded by smaller plants and those that spill over the edges. It is even sizeable enough that it can be grown alone in a suitable container. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.

-- THIS IS A TROPICAL PLANT AND SHOULD NOT BE EXPECTED TO SURVIVE THE WINTER OUTDOORS IN OUR CLIMATE --