Anyone tried growing ginger?

My ornamentals are in a large pot and just come up every year.

 

Mine took literally 6 months to germinate, made some leaves about 2 foot tall, then I put them outside in may and they all died back to the tuber

 

I've found hedychiums and roscoeas do better outside than zingibers. Currently my 3 or 4 hedychiums are a couple of foot tall and the Zingiber chrysanthum has only just got to about 6"; if it doesn't come on a bit better it will be back in a pot in the greenhouse. Note all have been slow this year.
A couple of decades ago I did grow Zingiber officinale indoors for a couple of years, planted it out and that was it gone.

 

I used to grow Alpinia zerumbet variegata, it was a nice plant but not at all hardy and almost appeared to be a winter grower, just seemed to stand still all summer.

 

I kept my officinale in the greenhouse. The tubers were far more fragrant and lemony than bought ones at the time. But not a big enough crop!

 

Heat has done wonders this week

 

Does the Root Ginger from supermarket produce flowers ? for the seconed year running I have a pot full of leaves but no flowers.

Banana man , is your ginger with flowers from the supermarket please?

 

I've not tried it for years, but if you want flowers you are much better going for a flowering one rather than the culinary ginger.

 

Im not very good at growing the flower ones , Had one from Dobbies and the other from Farmer Gracie.Yet cant complain about supermarket ginger.

 

They may take a year or two to flower, most of the flowering types need to be left to get on with it, if you do they won't disappoint.

 

If you want to grow Zingiber officinale in the UK then it's a house, or greenhouse plant, it needs to be kept warm and have decent humidity. It is not frost hardy.
It will produce stems indoors, but the roots do not increase much.
There is a hardy edible ginger from Japan Zingiber mioga. Growing advice here Zingiber mioga | Japanese ginger Herbaceous Perennial/RHS
Gingers often flower at ground level.
Hedychiums produce flowers at the top, but have to reach a decent size before they flower.

 

I am in the process of growing some culinary ginger at the moment. I have tried in the past without success because I did it wrong!
I bought some ginger root from a SM just after Christmas and planted it in a pot of multi purpose compost, covering the whole piece with about 1/2 ins of compost. Like you, I kept digging it up, it was not doing anything but at least it wasn't rotting off. It took about 3 months before I spotted the tip of a green shoot coming up, now I have 3 shoots, look like thick grass. I have just moved it out into the garden for a breath of fresh air. My mistake previously was expecting to have usable root in the same year but I have decided it will take 3-4 years for the roots to thicken up enough to crop and that I threw the baby out with the bath water because there were no usable roots in the pot in the year I planted it.
I have a large stand of decorative ginger growing in my garden, last years stems are just about ready to remove now. The flowers smell wonderful in August, the stems and roots do smell of ginger but only faintly. I have never tried cooking with it. I have always left the foliage on as protection in case we have bad weather during the winter. I started off with 3 plants, a red flower, an orange flower and a cream one. I lost the red one within a year or two of planting, the orange one still grows and flowers, just, but the cream one has taken off and multiplied vigorously. I am guessing the edible one will have cream flowers. The tubers look like dahlia tubers, growing along the surface of the soil which is why they need protection.
The edible one will definitely need protection and a degree of warmth during the winter, then patience, patience, patience, for at least 3 years. I am wondering if we need to wait until our roots are old enough to start flowering before thinking of cropping from them. It will grow until it is about 3-4 ft tall each year, after dying back in the autumn,so not a small plant.
Good luck with yours.
Good luck with yours.

 

@Goldenlily26 do you know what variety the cream one is please? A friend has given me some hedychium "Devon Cream" which is starting to bulk, and Luna Moth is very vigorous, but very late flowering.

 

I have no idea of the name of my decorative gingers. The labels have been lost for years.
I live in Cornwall which may explain why I am able to leave them outside year round.
The first time I saw ginger growing was in Trebah Gardens, they had some enormous pots, full of them in flower, in the restaurant. I just had to have some!