Do you want to hear about a plant full of sugar and spice, a plant especially nice for your window garden? It’s the ginger lily, Kaempferia rotunda.
Ginger lilies grow from fleshy tubers or roots. These exciting tropicals are members of the Zingiberaceae and are endemic to Tropical Asia and Africa.
There are about 50 species, but only five or six appear to be listed by dealers. All are closely related to hedychium, the Hawaiian white ginger.
Here are “bulbs” that need no cold-frame or cellar treatment, and one needs no green thumb to bring them into flower.
With but a modicum of care, they are sure to bloom, and because most of them thrive just as well in the window garden as in the greenhouse, I think they deserve wider recognition.
Exotic Flowers of Rotunda
Order ginger lilies in the fall or early winter, pot them in equal parts of loam, Ieaf mold, sand, and peat moss in well-drained 4 or 6-inch pots, and set them away until spring. Rotunda starts sprouting any time from mid-March to May.
Water it well and place it in your window garden when it does. You’ll be pleasantly surprised when its lovely crocus-like flowers, minus leaves, push through the soil.
These fragile flowers have four petals, the two upper ones pale orchid, the lower ones streaked with deep purple.
The flowers (about 2″ inches wide) last for a single day, giving off a most exotic, spicy perfume. But the rotunda will favor you with a flower or two daily or every other day for a month or more. What a rare gift this plant is for tile shut-in!
Ideal Growing Conditions For Ginger Lilies
Ginger lilies are not fussy about their growing quarters. Any light corner or window satisfies them.
Mine grows in a northeast window. As the lustful few blossoms fade, the rotunda’s foliage appears.
The leaves are a rich, dark green, embossed with deep brown streaks and blotches. When grown in a pot in the window, lack of light causes the leaves to grow vertically.
When I summer this plant outdoors among the tuberous begonias, the leaves widen and arch toward the earth.
Kaempferia Roscoeana: A Unique Ginger Lily
K. Roscoena is another delightful member of this family. It’s quite different from its sister plants and makes an excellent companion plant to a group of African violets. Roscoe’s gorgeous leaves appear before the flowers.
Satiny, dull green with an interesting bronze mosaic pattern, this foliage proclaims K. Roscoena, the peacock of the ginger lilies.
The four-petaled flowers are frosty lavender-pink and appear several times a week over six to eight weeks.
Seasonal Care and Maintenance of Ginger Lilies
When the danger of frost is over, I sink the potted ginger lilies in a sheltered garden nook. Heavy winds ruin their lovely foliage.
They appreciate twice-a-month feedings of liquid fertilizer to build up buds for next spring’s flower show.
Remove the tubers and plant them directly into the garden if you don’t favor the pot-plunging method.
Ginger lilies are not hardy and must be brought into shelter before frost. They winter best in a basement or closet between 55° and 60° degrees Fahrenheit.
If you store them in pots, remember to dash a little water on the topsoil every second week; if you have elected to store them in sand or vermiculite, sprinkle water over the media once or twice a month to ensure against tuber shrinkage.
If the soil in the initial potting was proportioned well, you will not need to re-pot ginger lilies for the second year’s growth.
Remove about an inch of the topsoil and replace it with fresh soil. Bring them into the window garden as soon as you notice signs of renewed growth.
Propagating Ginger Lilies
Ginger lilies are propagated through root division. In my indoor garden, they have always been singularly free of pests.
These exciting bits of window garden finery are reasonably priced, too. Rotunda is listed under a dollar.
Cultivating Ginger Lilies
Other species of ginger lilies in cultivation are:
- Gilberti, which has white-margined green leaves and purple or white flowers (I have never been successful in blooming this one in my window garden, but it is rather showy outdoors).
- Parish with pale green leaves and white flowers.
- Galanga which blooms indoors or out with equal ease.
I’ve often heard it said, “When you can no longer be surprised, you’re getting old.” Grow a few of the ginger lilies, and I’ll guarantee you a host of day-by-day surprises!
44659 by Peggie Schulz