Some of my gingers are already growing but some of them are still dormant. If your rhizomes are still firm I would leave them alone. Maybe they just need a little more time.

Of course, right after writing that I decided I needed to see them again. Out I went to gently dig with my fingertips. I found them (again) and now they have a few 1" shoots pointing upward. The shoots haven't broken the surface of the soil, but looks like the rhizomes are finally getting started.

I don't like it when plants take until Mother's Day to leaf out or come back from dormancy. I once yanked a Red Maple tree after it did that to me three or four years in a row. I couldn't stand looking at a stick tree until early summer. So I took it out and a few months later, planted two Red Maples in its place - grown from seed collected by my mother in North Carolina. They are always leafed out by February which makes me happy. I guess since they are from North Carolina they don't think Jacksonville is all that cold. :)

My Green Ash tree is very, very late to leaf out this year. So were some other plants. I think the late freeze we had here on March 4th (low of 28.2 F) has set lots of plants and trees back about a month.

Carol

And thanks, Kara, for the vote of confidence and confirmation that some of yours are doing the same. I appreciate it!

Carol

I am having the same problem with my Shampoo Ginger. I guess they don't like being taken for granted! I thought it was a worry free staple in my yard. Shows what I know!

My pinecone ginger haven't come up yet either. I thought my chickens must have gotten them, but maybe there is still hope. I'm going to go dig down and check them tomorrow.

Hi
my dormant types are just starting up and I'm in 10 with an incredibly warm winter. Anybody know what triggers dormancy?? Certainly not temps as I'd always believed.
gary

Oh, you guys make me feel so good! So everyone's shampoo ginger is running late! I'm so glad I finally posted this... I've been thinking about it for a few weeks. Please post when yours finally comes up.

Gary, you ask a great question! I think Mike (foreverlad) asked the same thing in a similar post. I would like to know, too.

Carol

I dug mine up yesterday to move it, it is just starting to shoot. Shampoo ginger is always up last for me. Neglectum is at about the same time. My white butterfly never went dormant, but is just starting to make new stems. Disney sprouted very early this year and is already 4' tall.

I think less sunlight hours might trigger dormancy. That seemed to be the case with shampoo ginger. It is not cold for it. But butterfly ginger and more tropical gingers like red plume seem to want to grow year round, but get knocked back, sometimes to the ground by cool temps.

My various butterfly gingers are a little over a foot tall. I left them in the ground last winter. I have a few in pots and they never went dormant even though I did not run heat in the greenhouse this winter. My pink, white, and blue globbas are still dormant as well as the Kaempferia grande. I don't expect them to come up for maybe another month though.
~SJN

My Shampoo Ginger just sent up a small shoot. I guess it needed to be publically acknowledged in a GW thread!

I planted a Shampoo Ginger from the Fall '12 swap in a raised bed........I thought it was a goner.....It just sprouted within a field of scallion onion sets that I overplanted in the area.......doug

A ginger from last fall's party has just showed its little green head. Maybe the others will wake up, too. Just my luck to get slow ginger... I would rather some slow gin instead.

Larry

Yay! My gingers are all up now, too. They are about a foot tall. Whew!

Carol

I think all my gingers are up, I should say Yay! like Carol,lol.

This variety is yellow from Hawaii, don't remember the name but it smells good! I got a little corm and now is big.

Amber gave me this in one of the parties, she wrote the name good in one of the blinds with pencil and I could read the name cone ginger

I went to my friend's home and she had this beautiful pink gingers that are small and we liked them, she told me that in Asia that ginger is giving as a good luck plant and your friend has to grow it for you, she gave me a pot with a dormant ginger and I just got some leaves and because is a good luck I planted it in the front yard and it looks like I got 2.:)

Silvia

Silvia, those all look great! Yay! (Are you making fun of me?)

You might need to hit up Wallisadi for some blue ginger to add to your collection. One of these days, I'm going to bug him for some, too. I don't have blue ginger but I have seen pictures in various blogs. I think it is a fall bloomer and would match your pea/butterfly vine. It has been on my wish list for a long time.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Google Images - Blue Ginger

What I thought was a ginger, is not. This poor little lily and 3 others have tried to bloom for the last 3 years. Every year the lubers chop off the first leaf at ground level. Either the lubers are late( not likely since I have smashed 3 so far), or the plant decided to put everything in high gear this year. The other 2 have not showed up, and may have given up. I think it is a crinum, but flowers are not my forte.

So I am still waiting for a ginger root to take hold.

Larry

Carol, are you trying to be the devil's advocate? lol.

Larry, the same thing happened to me, I had some bulbs that I was not expecting but I like them. No lubers yet in my garden...

Silvia

Larry, I think that lily might be African Blood Lily (Scadoxus multiflorus)? See the link below and see what you think.

Silvia, {{gwi:387657}}

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Google Images - Blood Lily

Somebody asked; 'What triggers dormancy?'
Abscisic acid is the hormone found in plants that is related to plant dormancy. When temperatures drop in the fall, the ratio of abscisic acid to temperature is what triggers the suspension of the growth of foliage and causes the plant to enter dormancy. Plants that are deficient in abscisic acid will have trouble entering dormancy. The accumulation of winter cold and time slowly breaks down the abscisic acid in the plant and when the hormonal balance of the plant shifts, growth is once again triggered and the plant wakes out of it's dormancy.. This is why mild winters causes plants to take longer to wake up from dormancy as time becomes the factor rather than cold. (There are some other minor factors involved) This ratio of abscisic acid to winter temperature and time is how the required average 'chill hours' are determined for each plant.

Lou

Hi
Cold dormancy is fairly easy to understand but most gingers originate from tropical climes. Interesting that some types don't go dormant at all Mine maintained in the GH go dormant within days of those in the yard so i thought the amount of light. Those under HID lights went dormant within 3 weeks of the other groups lol By placing in the fridge i got immediate dormancy as would be expected .
Another interesting aspect of the dormant types is the rate of growth . mind boggling lol gary

This winter, I mulched my gingers much more heavily and they are already starting to come up. This year, I didn't wait for them to freeze back before cutting them. The night before the big freeze (a prediction of 19 which turned out to be 23), I cut them (still green) all off at the base/ground. I laid all of those stalks across bed, right across the top of the plants. It made a nice, thick layer of protection. Last year, I waited for them to freeze back and cut them back after they had been frozen, dried and brown. They came back so much earlier this year, this will be my new practice.

Carol

My hedychiums and small bananas that froze back are already returning- didn't mulch them at all. The larger bananas only froze the leaves- stalks are still firm.
My costus speciosus aka 'crepe' ginger stalk is still standing and only the leaves froze lol. Stalk still feels firm. Last winter was way warmer (this winter we hit in the 20's) and it went totally dormant last year...go figure.

The hedychiums that I kept in pots in the gh didn't go dormant at all. I only heat it if it goes under freezing. Most of all the others are still dormant.
I haven't totally looked through everything in the gh so I'm not really sure about the little shampoo ginger I have in a pot somewhere in there.

Sultry_Jasmine_Nights,

I noticed the same thing - most of my plants don't seem as damaged as last year even though last year was a much more mild winter. I wonder if I had not cut back my butterfly gingers if they would have survived? I did not cut back my variegated shell gingers until today - the stalks looked pretty flesh and white - maybe they didn't need a whack (but they got one).

My bananas are like yours, too. Only the leaves froze - all of the stalks are firm.

This is all great news. But, of course, it is only February 10. Now what number chicken was I on? :)

Carol

Yes I know what you mean about counting chickens. Everything here is breaking dormancy. The figs and plumeria are starting to grow green tips, night blooming jasmine and brugs are growing back up from the roots etc. Either we will get an early spring (as the plants seem to think) or we will get a wicked late freeze and set everything back again lol.

I have tropical waterlilies breaking dormancy in my water containers so the water temps are staying up enough for the tropical lilies to start growing. Keep your fingers crossed.

Thanks for sharing your technique Carol. I also usually wait until they brown to cut back. But they look really ugly for a while, if the plants come back just as well or even better, seems pretty compelling to cut the green stalks to use as mulch. Incidentally, this year my butterfly gingers are still green - 6 kinds that have not died back. All of the cone ginger types die back whether or not it is cold, and I've pruned those all to the ground.

Really enjoyed reading through this. I am one of those snow birds but do have some quite nice gardens in the 14 years I have been down here. Do have some gingers and I forget which ones they are now. They do well so my neighbours say, but I have never seen them in bloom. I do see them coming up already. Some of them and usually before I go north they are looking healthy But never do I see the flowers. I can not even as I say remember which ones I have. Would like to know more about Brugmansia here as well Is one of my favourite plants and at home in Canada I overwinter them in a cold room Pull them out doors as soon as I am home and have them mostly in bloom before the frost hits them. Down here I have three Although I give them some fertilizing Iknow it is not enough as I don't usually get much bloom here. But do you, who are gardening here all year, have bloom on your Brugmansia. I wa sup in Laekland in December and did see some beautiful bloom on Brugmansia up there.i

Hi Diane

I'm surprised your brugs aren't blooming right now. I see you are in Ft. Myers - which is way south of me and probably warmer - I would think your brugs would be better performers than mine!

I have a pretty pink one that is loaded with buds, plus 8 are fully opened. I guess it likes the cold - I saw frost on the ground this morning.

I got this plant from Wallisadi last April and it was just a little rooted cutting (I've posted a pic of it somewhere on this forum) and I am tickled at how beautiful it turned out to be!

Susie