Tag Archives: hedychium

By the way….

24 Sunday Oct 2010

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…it did flower for me after all 😀


The unseasonably sunny weather over the last few weeks played in my favour so I had this to look at and swoon over out of my garden room window.


Actually it doesn’t stop there: there are two more flower spikes, both at the stage this one was at a couple of weeks ago and looking a little dicey as to whether they’ll actually make it to full glory.

However it must be said we have now had our first ground frost (to one degree above, so it doesn’t really count, but it was a warning shot across the bows). So my triffids are safely stashed in my insulated and soon-to-be-heated greenhouse, which I hope will soon be filled with the scent of gingerlily flowers.

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A housewarming present

26 Sunday Sep 2010

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My poor container plants are all higgledy-piggledy. There are geraniums on the steps and a loquat tree teetering on the wall, the lawn is developing oval-shaped sickly yellow patches under tubs of mint dumped and still there two weeks after moving, and all my lovingly-sown salad leaves, still in their seed tray about to be transplanted into their large and roomy trough, were eaten by large snails on the first night we got here.

But though I could be gloomy and pessimistic I am not: for among it all appeared a single flower which has become my Good Omen and convinced me that despite all evidence to the contrary everything is going to be All Right.

I posted some time ago about an unfeasibly big Hedychium I was given which I promptly split in three. You won’t be at all surprised to find that the experimental portion I left in the ground perished forthwith during last year’s winter: but I have two left. The one in the house is alive, but small and not very enthusiastic: but the one I overwintered in the greenhouse is rude with health.

Since I knew I was moving I kept it in the pot: it only just survived the move, in fact, as while it was on its perilous trip from greenhouse to removal van there was a horrible creaking and ripping noise and one of the large branches listed drunkenly sideways. The removal van was rather sweet, if a little gung-ho, and grabbed a nearby leg of greenhouse staging to plunge it in the pot: he then used a webbing strap of the sort they have in removal lorries to lash the whole lot together. Heath Robinson it may be but it saved my ginger lily.

It has rewarded me – and, in absentia, the removal van man – by producing its first-ever flower spike. It is a little late in the season and since temperatures are dropping by the hour it may never quite make it to flowering stage: but even the fact that it’s trying is one of those little signs of hope which help you make it through the cardboard boxes and out the other side.

I’ve got three triffids

21 Wednesday Oct 2009

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I took a rip saw to my new triffid the other day. I couldn’t quite take the JAS option and sharpen my axe (apart from anything else everyone kept running away when I asked them to help). So, a breadknife being laughably small, I raided my husband’s carpentry workshop (don’t worry, dear, I chose the rusty one).

My heart was in my mouth, I could barely look…. but actually, it was remarkably easy, and now my one monster triffid is three baby triffids.

I’ve hedged my bets with three possible overwintering options:

At DEFCON 1 is Triffid 1:

Most at risk of being lost to frost damage, especially if we have another winter like the last one, Triffid 1 is outside, in the border, and will stay outside all winter. I’ll be giving it a thick mulch of autumn leaves, topped off with a pinned-down plastic bag (to keep the water off the crown as much as possible) covered in compost for extra insulation.

At DEFCON 2 is Triffid 2:

(can you tell this is the knobbly bit that was trying to get out of the original pot?)

Potted up into a nice 50:50 mix of John Innes and multi-purpose, plus a handful of sand thrown in for drainage, this chap is going into the frost-free greenhouse to see out the winter. I’m not too confident, to be honest, as I did this to my majestically lush Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii’ last year, and that’s supposed to put up with roughly the same conditions as a Hedychium – but it turned to mush pretty quickly.

And at DEFCON 5 is my fall-back position, the one I really ought to be able to get to survive, the one I’m risking domestic peace and tranquillity to preserve by putting it in the dining room for the winter:

Actually there’s a sting in the tail, as this was the only chunk which came away without a big hunk of root on it. It had some very sturdy-looking side roots which I hope are even as I write developing into the large rope-like snakes of its larger brothers. But in the meantime I’ve had to support it with a network of canes to keep it upright and the roots, such as they are, as stable as possible.

I chopped them all back by about two-thirds so the root systems wouldn’t have the bother of supporting nine-foot greenery as well as finding their way around their containers (or my other plants, in the case of Triffid 1). Now I just have to watch every single weather forecast for that crucial first frost: in fact I think even if one hasn’t arrived by next week or so I’m bringing them in anyway. Wish me luck.

I’ve got a triffid

02 Friday Oct 2009

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I’ve been given a triffid.

It’s about 9ft tall and it’s rather scarily making a bid to burst out of its (14″ or so) pot.

So, it’s a Hedychium gardnerianum, aka ginger lily or Kahlili ginger. Now, not to brag or anything but I’ve seen these in the wild in the Caribbean, but never attempted to look after one myself. Luckily, after much internet research I’ve discovered that they’re quite robust even in a British climate: in fact they have been described as ‘quite invasive’ when given good drainage and a southerly bit of the UK. You can even leave them outside all winter with a thick mulch and a cover over to keep the rain off (as with so many things, it’s the winter wet that gets ’em, not the cold).

I’m quite hopeful of success in my free-draining sand, but just in case I’m splitting it in three (it desperately needs it, after all) and putting one bit in the (frost-free) greenhouse and another bit in my dining room, much to poor non-gardening husband’s despair.

Only question now is, how to split it. Whaddya reckon – breadknife? Bandsaw? Chainsaw?!

(PS: you are seeing far more of my garden than I usually allow onto these pages in the above photos, mainly because this is a plant that resolutely defies my usual refuge in the macro lens. The reason there is straw all over my lawn, in case you were wondering, is because that’s where the guineapigs live).