I've just sewn some seeds for Alpinia zerumbet. Hard little seeds and I hope they will survive outdoors here in Bakersfield, where temperature extremes range from triple digit day time in Summer down to hard freezes and 0 degrees in Winter.

I'm betting on the fact that these are rhizomate plants and should survive like Canna, Bananas and Bird of Paradise, all of which are in the same plant family.

Thanks. I will plant and hope. I plan to plant them close to the house in hopes they will get extra protection.

I used to keep them in the ground in a zone 9 next to the house and they always came back. We would have some winter temps down into the 20's then and didn't seem to bother them, it didnt stay in the 20's for that long though and went back up to 50's, 60's during the day.. I dont know about colder though.

These are fairly tough little plants. I have some in pots now in the shade. They get no humidity here and look lovely even through 120 degrees when everything else was wilting. Most of my gingers are doing good here (Arizona) with no humidity -who woulda thought....

I love this plant. We had temps in the low 30's last winter and I lost many of the true tropical plants in our yard. That said, the Alpinia zerumbet 'variegata' did extremely well. We had more blooms this year than any other. Last weekend I pruned all the spent flower stalks and I noticed many new stalks coming up and the plant had no visible damage.We have had more humidity this summer than in summers past. That may have something to do with it.

In a zone 7b garden this will not be reliably evergreen, but can return from the roots if mulched. They generally take 2 years to bloom, so it is unlikely you will ever see this flower, unless you grow it as a container plant and bring it under protection in winter. Here in northern California this plant easily handles down to 27F with no signs of freezing, but I wouldn't risk it by subjecting it to days on end of these temps, it will weaken the plant. One or two nights of 27F or even down to 25F is not nearly as damaging as regular cold each winter.