Melinda's Garden Moment Radio Tips
Melinda Myers
Nationally known gardening expert, TV/Radio host, author & columnist with over 30 years of horticulture experience and tons of gardening information to share! www.melindamyers.comMelinda's Garden Moment videos will help you create that beautiful landscape you’ve always wanted. Each week throughout the growing season, a new gardening video will be added right here, so be sure to stop back. You can also watch Melinda’s Garden Moments on your local network TV station affiliate.
Bring the tropics to your balcony, back porch or indoor gardens with variegated shell ginger, Alpinia zerumbet ‘Variegata.’
Grow this tropical beauty as a specimen plant or focal point in a container placed in full sun or shade. Water thoroughly and often enough to keep the soil moist but not soggy wet.
Variegated shell ginger is grown for the large green and yellow streaked leaves. Create a dramatic display by combining it with dark foliage plants like Blackie sweet potato vine or purple flowered annuals like Black Velvet petunia. Or use it to brighten those shady areas in the garden.
Variegated shell ginger is winter hardy in zones 8 to 10. In other areas, treat it like an annual or bring it indoors for winter. Grow it like a houseplant in a bright location or allow the leaves to dry and store the rhizomes in a cool dark place.
A bit more information: Shell ginger is related to but not the same as the edible culinary ginger (Zingiber officinale). The flowers of shell ginger are drooping clusters of slightly fragrant pearly white flowers.