It's like a merry-go-round! We've had high temperatures above 90°F (32°C) along with high humidity the past few days, so summer is here. So far none of the thunderstorms that pop up each afternoon have delivered any measurable precipitation to the garden, but there's a good chance we'll get a soaking this weekend when a cold front passes through, also delivering a couple of days of cooler temperatures and lower humidity. I try to plan the garden so that it provides interest, if not flowers, every day of the year and adding hardy sub-tropicals to the garden has really improved my appreciation of hot, humid, summer weather. This post is about one of those sub-tropicals, the first Hedychium to bloom each summer.
I think it may be a form of Hedychium coccineum because it has glaucous foliage and small reddish-orange flowers, but it's very short, only 3 feet (1m) tall, and always blooms in June, more than a month before any other Hedychium. While many Hedychiums have fragrant flowers, this is not one of them, but like most members of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae), it's aromatic in all parts and crushing a leaf releases a fragrance much like that of culinary ginger, Zingiber officinale. Other attractive garden plants from the ginger family that spice up the summer garden are Alpinia, Curcuma, and Kaempferia. I'll write more about those later this summer.
Early blooming Hedychium
3 comments:
Nice! That is ridiculously early. I wonder what one would get from a cross between it and 'Daniel Weeks"? Both early, but "weeks" has the yellow and the fragrance. I'm not sure how well coccineum and the fragrant cultivars cross. Any idea?
My H. coronarium was just getting ready to bloom in December of last year, when a cold snap shut it down. I think I might have to leave this family to you southerners.
I look forward to your other gingers.
I grow about 50 different gingers here in northeast FL, zone 9, and this looks almost exactly like my coccineum "Orange Bottlebrush".
Nestor
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