It has been known that ginger is a flowering plant providing tremendous benefits to people for a long time. The rhizome is often used by people for the use of spices in cooking and medicine. In addition to obtaining benefits from its roots, you can choose ginger flowers as ornamental plants in your garden due to their unique and distinctive blossoms.
This also indicates that gingers, commonly known by the Latin name Zingiberaceae, have high economic value because of the benefits it provides. However, if you are interested in caring for and growing this flower, you should pay attention to some important things in the care of ginger flowers. Several factors that need to be considered include conditions/environment, care, and propagation. To find out more about what needs to be considered for the care and growth of this plant, we will review it as follows.
Conditions/Environment
As we know that these aromatic herbaceous plants are widely distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics from Africa, Asia to America. Ginger plants prefer to grow in warm and humid locations. They don’t have the ability to adapt to strong winds and soil conditions with poor drainage. Thus, if they are cultivated in such a place, they can produce stunted and shriveled roots, even leading to rot.
These plants can be grown in gardens and containers with loamy, rich, loose soils. In addition, there are a few things that you need to pay attention to when you choose a place to plant them.
In the garden, the plants can grow to a height of 2 meters and have striking foliage. They are very suitable as a beautiful ornamental plant in the gardens. However, at harvest time, you have to dig up to get the rhizome.
Meanwhile, if you want to plant it in containers, you need to consider its size. Since they can grow to a range of 1 meter, you will need a larger and deeper container with good drainage access in the pot. Furthermore, you also need to remember that lighting for this plant is very important because of its nature that requires the morning sun. Therefore, if you want to grow it indoors, you must make sure that the room has warm conditions and should not be below 10°C.
Care
Several factors that determine success in cultivating ginger plants include land preparation, planting, watering, and fertilization. In the first step, the land to be used must be plowed 4 to 5 times, and receive irrigation to make the soil smooth. Before starting to grow them, you need to prepare the rhizomes seeds and first soak them in warm water for a few hours or overnight. Then, you plant the roots with the buds looking up and cover them with soil as high as 2.5-5 cm.
Watering is done slowly, and it changes in intensity to be frequent during the growing season. It is recommended to carry out daily watering about one day each week. For watering plants in containers, you should try to keep them moist and not water them until the soil reaches a wet point.
For fertilization, ginger blooms grown in gardens are recommended to be given a fertilizer containing high phosphorous and potassium compounds, while flowers grown in containers can be given fertilizer, such as seaweed extract, fish emulsion, or other organic fertilizers.
By the way, there is a unique fact from Zingiberaceae in which they have the ability not to be damaged by aphids or mealybugs. However, the most threatening pest of this plant is the yellow peach moth (Conogethes punctiferalis). The larvae of moths often feed on pseudostems and make their internal tissues change color and the condition of their leaves becomes yellow and dry. Specific symptoms of this pest attack can be seen from the presence of holes in the pseudostem, which is accompanied by wilting and yellowing of the central shoots.
Propagation
Propagation of this plant is quite easy to do. You can do this by cutting the rhizome in half. After that, you can plant it again in containers or soil in your garden, and do it gradually
Beforehand, if you are interested in getting a harvest from ginger flowers, you are required to remove the entire plant from the roots first. Well, to determine when you should harvest it, you can see the indications through the change in color of the leaves which turn yellow and begin to dry. It is estimated that it will take you 8 to 10 months to get a dry harvest for propagation.
A little additional information, in the preparation process for harvesting dry ginger, you need to soak them in water in a container for 6-7 hours, then clean them of foreign things on the surface of the rhizomes. The peeled rhizomes are then washed and dried in the sun for one week.
For your additional information, these blooms can last as cut flowers for three weeks.
That’s the explanation for the aspects that need to be considered in caring for and growing ginger flowers. Since the enormous benefits that can be obtained from this plant, you can try to plant it by first buying the seeds of the rhizome. However, if you have an interest in getting them as a gift or your ornamental plant, you can visit birthday delivery Singapore.
