Week of June 21, 2020

To complement last week’s Blog on its foliage, the week’s theme will be GINGER FLOWERS.  Since the tropics-loving ginger emerges rather late, their blooms also appear in midsummer, adding variety to the Pentas and firebushes that bloom all summer.  As does the foliage, ginger flowers in our Florida garden vary tremendously in size, shape, and color.  Many have white blossoms but opening to richly veined petals with browns and Rose, such as the Thai ginger, with a long spike of small flowers with beautiful throats.  Others like the ginger along the back fence have large flower heads again with yellows and browns.  Some of the flower clusters are quite large, like the shell gingers, with odd flowers looking like little clams. The red gingers have only one large flower per plant this year but bright red petals and bright yellow actual flowers.  A new ginger mysteriously showing up in our Palm Row is a small plant about a foot tall with large glossy leaves and a bright and shiny cluster of yellow blossoms.  We are trying to get a name for this new ginger.  Later in the summer, the pinecone gingers will put up their blooms on separate stalks with large buds that look like pine cones but turn red with little white petals.  Gingers not only add their greenery but also make the walk in the garden interesting to see the next ginger bloom as the summer progresses.