The amazing Hedychium deceptum from India, has recently burst into flower here at JLBG. This species is fairly new to commerce, but has proven to be an amazing, compact-growing specimen that thrives even in our full sun. The dark cinnamon calyces really make the scarlet flowers stand out. We rate this as hardy to Zone 8a, but that’s because we simply don’t have enough data yet, but we’ll be very surprised if it’s not fine in Zone 7b.
Early fall is peak ginger lily season, and Hedychium ‘Anne Bishop’ is looking particularly stunning this week. This amazing cultivar always ranks near the very top of our favorites list.
Just like the Broadway play, we love the plant, Boesenbergia hamiltonii. We acquired this gem from India in 2005 before it actually existed as a species. Back in the day, taxonomists who dealt only with dead, smashed plants, had created a rather large mess assigning the name Boesenbergia longiflora to every reasonably similar-looking ginger from India to Thailand. Finally, in 2013, a group of taxonomists looked at live specimens, only to discover that there were actually five different species involved in what was known as B. longiflora. Boesenbergia hamiltonii was one of those plants that came out of the divorce, which is great, since it’s the most winter hardy member of the clan. Here is our plant in light shade at JLBG, where it flowers for months during the summer.
