Growing Alpinia Ginger Indoors

Okay, listen, I know it's dim out. It seems like an odd time to film this video, but there's a good reason. I want to talk about this ginger here. And this time of year, the angle of the sun is really sharp and the air is more dry. So the leaves, when there's sun over here on the plant, they're just like this. They're just hiding from the sun. And that's not fun. Nobody wants to see that. This is what looks the most beautiful. And look at how luminous it is. Reflective. Now that it's darker, you can see that yellow really popping out of the plant. Get it. That's my disclosure. It's a little bit dark out, but I think you can see it better. Hey, what's up, garden friends? Jeff here. So we're doing well. I'm great. Lovely day outside. I want to talk about this alpinea right here. The alpinea zaremba variegata. Very good. Wait, is it alpinea zaremba? It's going to be the same difference. That's what I'm talking about. Winter care. I've talked about this in a video before, but I thought maybe we can be a bit more concise with it because my thoughts have changed. My experiences have changed. Some of the information is the same, but overall I feel like I just have a lot to add from last time we talked about these, which was several years ago. Now if you don't know what this plant is, it's the variegated shell ginger. They get to be quite large. They'll go, you know, excess seven, eight feet, and they have beautiful flowers that dangle down on inflorescence. Absolutely beautiful on them. Takes them a few years to flower, so it's not something we get to see here in zone 6b all that often. You have to be able to keep them growing at least like 50% all year so if I have like 50% dieback that's probably okay. Just have to have continued growth out of the main stems down below if you want to get flowers out of them. So it takes a few years. I don't see them very often up here. Pretty adaptable but they do like things to be more on the moist side. They like high humidity. They do all their growing when it's nice and warm outside when it's cool. They just kind of hang out but they can take some cooler temps. They want things organically rich so as much as you can compost and amend their soil the better. They respond very very well to it. Decent houseplant? Probably not. Just because it's really hard to give them a lot of warmth, a lot of heat, and a lot of humidity in the house, right? That's just, it's not in my house. I wouldn't be very happy indoors if that's what it's like inside. Spoiled America with my air conditioner and whatnot, right? They just wouldn't like it. But a lot of us try and overwinter these because they're relatively expensive. You know, this isn't like, I don't know, a coleus or something like that, which those aren't cheap anymore either. Nothing's cheap anymore, but I can get a new coleus for four to six bucks next year. I'm not going to bother taking that inside. These, depending on where you live around here, you rarely find them for less than 30 bucks. You know, sometimes you'll see them in a small, like one gallon pot, maybe the big box store for like $14.99. Typically, though, I like to buy them at least a 10-inch container, three-gallon pot. Those start around $30, usually more than that. So it's nice to bring them in, right? I pretty much always do. Some years, I don't. I try and get some new ones, only if I really wasn't all that thrilled with their growth. I'm like, eh, juice isn't worth the squeeze. I'd rather try and find one that looks better because their variegation varies an awful lot. Try and find one with good variegation when you're shopping for them. You want to take them inside. Here's what I would suggest. Slow your roll with the watering. I know I said they like a lot of moisture inside. You don't have the warmth for them. So just go ahead and see how they do if you let them dry out. Wait till that pot feels more on the light side. And then give it some water. If it starts to look limp and sad, if the leaves start to cup and look bad, I'm going to need to repot it. I'll show you that one. This guy right here, it looks terrible. It needs a new container. It's hard to keep it hydrated. So, you know, it's going to have more of that limp, kind of flaccid appearance to it. Well, that needs water. Try it in your garage. Not if you live someplace like Minnesota and it's horribly, horribly cold outside. If you can keep your garage above freezing, ideally if your garage can stay above 45, really more like around 60 degrees during the wintertime, if you have a space like that between 50 and 60, I'd give them a shot in that space. Set them down someplace, maybe pop a grow light above them if you don't have any windows or anything like that. It doesn't need to be very intense. Just see how that does. If they continue growing and the growth looks really thin and spindly up the grow light on them and keep things nice and clean down below because that's where all the rot and all the problems start to happen is on the inside. This is in a pot and it's you know it's way back in here but there's a container and see there's dead stuff in there so when I bring this in, I'm going to make sure that all that stuff is cleaned up. No brown, none of that. I want to keep that off the plant. I have had my best luck overwintering these when I've set them someplace in my garage where they're not even under any grow lights. They're just in the path of all the water that flows across my garage floor when I water everything else. I don't even water them. They just take that water up from the ground when I water everything else. And because they're in a spot that's more cool and more dark, I don't have lights above them. They're closer to my garage doors. The closer you are to my doors, the colder it's going to be. The closer to the house, the warmer it's going to be because that's where my heater is. That's when they've looked their best for me is when I kind of stand back and leave them alone. Trying to keep them growing, looking like a beautiful tropical plant that just doesn't always work out the best. Sometimes it's better to just let them be. If you can pull it off where you have an overwintering period that's only for a few months, That might be the way to go. Sometimes less is more, right? Let's, I mean, I'm probably not the person to be saying that. You know what I mean though? That there can be overkill. I remember trying to put these guys into self-watering containers and having heaters around them and humidifiers around them because I just want to keep them going so hopefully I'll be able to get flowers out of them someday. Like I said, the more growth you can maintain on them, the better likelihood you have of getting some flowers on them. But I've kind of changed my perspective on that. I think the foliage on these is nice enough, the flowers are pretty, but I mean just this alone, this is a nice looking plant. I'm happy to grow it just for its leaves. Look at that, that's just so freaking pretty. Great plant to have when you move them outside in the winter, not winter, don't do that, move them outside in the spring whenever the frost is passing, tuck them in some place that's more shady, it just helps brighten the area up. In the house, wouldn't recommend it. Also these take up a huge footprint too, right? This one right here, Right here, this is a good... Oh, probably 10 feet from here to over there, maybe. Probably not that big. I'll say 7 or 8 feet, 10, that's pretty extreme. But that's a big footprint, right? And the pot's all the way in there. They like to fall over, too, because of that. It's just a pain. You can, I've done this before, it works well. It usually takes two people, but if you don't have a second person, put a stake down there in the middle of the pot, maybe two, and then you can take some string and pull all these up. Like this, and that's okay as long as it's not for too terribly long. If it's just for, you know, maybe a couple of months, that's probably okay. Downside to doing that is you are now kind of suffocating the inside of everything in here. Airflow is optimal. Pests really enjoy these, so, you know, there's a benefit-risk situation here, right? I don't know. I think it's worth it to just let them be. It can seem risky, and I know we all want to water our plants, we move them inside, but this one, if you can keep it in a spot that's just more cool and mild, you don't have to water it all that often. And just see how it does. You may need to work on your plant intuition. Some try and recognize signs of a stressed plant and how to deal with those things. You have to tweak things to make it work for you. But this has worked very well for me. Now don't get me wrong, the plants still come out in the springtime looking pretty rough. Lots of brown that has to be pruned out of them. Sometimes, you know, I'll have like 50% of the plant left by the time I'm done pruning them up. But overwintering 50% of one of these gingers is pretty dang decent, right? If you ever tried to grow these as a houseplant and keep them looking good for nine months in the house... I highly doubt you're going to be able to keep them looking 75% or more as good as they were when you moved them in. It's not likely. Maybe you have a really humid sunroom, something like that. But for most of us, no, probably not going to be the reality. Now, there is another option. More extreme, but much easier. You can take these. These have a rhizome, and it can store for a little while. I wouldn't store the rhizome, but I guess you could. Anyways, you can just cut the whole thing back. Cut the whole thing back. Leave some little nubs. above in the potting mix you can make sure that if you have to add water or something like that you're not getting the water directly into the crowns where you made their cuts a little bit above the soil let them dry out put in some place cool dark and dry for i don't know i wouldn't do it for more than eight weeks i don't know what the storage life is on these i check on them frequently make sure you can poke down feel the rhizome as long as it's still firm you're probably okay and then move it someplace warm and resume watering. where i live it's mostly what december uh late december through february is the hardest part of the year when it comes to keeping these things inside so when you think about that's really just two months march comes around the day lengths are starting to get longer temperatures get more mild so it's easier for me to heat the space up and december just kind of sucks so i guess it's probably three months because the day looks pretty short in december so you know what i mean That's about a three-month period. So you can get them through that three-month period where I live. They're okay. And I've never had any issues cutting them back. So like two times I did this and get them to spring back, but you need a lot of warmth to bring them back. So if you want to cut them back and store them like that, like you would say a curcuma, I pointed that way because there's a curcuma over here that I was talking about in a video I filmed earlier today and destroyed that. That was not this video. So what I'm talking about, here's one of those curcumas right here. You can cut these back. I just let them die back on their own. You store it as a pot full of dirt for the winter time, but you need the warmth to wake them back up. So that's the only caveat. Might not have to put them on top of a heat pad or something to wake them back up. Start them early. Unless you have a short period where you have to have them inside. If you live further south than I do, which a lot of you do if you're watching this video, you're in 7B Zone 8, maybe you only have to have these inside for a few months. That's a no-brainer. Leave them as they are and see how they do. Chances are they'll be fine. You get them outside with the warmth and that humidity, they spring back into action so, so, so quickly. Lots and lots of water, lots of fertilizer, consistent fertilizer, I should say, a quality fertilizer. Something that's well-balanced. They do respond well to compost, the kelps and alfalfa meals, those kinds of things. Give it to them. Feed those plants, they will grow. There we go. That's all that. You just had my 10-minute conversation about ways to overwinter these, and that I don't really think growing these as a houseplant is trying to make them look nice and pretty. I just don't think it's worth it. But if you have the conditions where you can do it, more power to you. More power to you. Send me pictures on Instagram. I'd like to see them in the house. I think that stuff is fascinating. I could never. There's no way my house does not have the light for it or the temperatures. It would just be a disaster. All right, comment down below. Tips, tricks, suggestions, always appreciated. Or just say hi. I love talking to everybody. And of course, as always, and most importantly, everybody, keep on growing. Bye, bye.