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Fact Sheet: Ginger Lily


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Presenter: Jane Edmanson, 01/04/2006

Jane profiles ginger lily with its fragrant flowers

Ginger lily Hedychium gardnerianum is a marvellous plant, because its fragrant flowers in late summer and early autumn pervade the whole garden. It's a perennial which grows to at least two metres high, and spreads quite widely. It is from the Himalayas and is frost prone. If you are growing it in Melbourne or southern Victoria it will be cut back by frosts. But that doesn't matter, because it grows from a rhizome under the ground.

Put one of the flower spikes indoors in a vase, it will last for ages, and the smell will pervade the whole house. In the garden, once they have finished flowering, remove the old spike of flowers. Simply cut it off and add it to the compost. Really tidy the bush and remove all the flowering stems down to the ground so that in spring new ones grow.

To propagate, divide the rhizome. But use a sharp mattock or spade to divide it. These plants will grow anywhere, but they like moisture and fertile soil or lots of compost around them.

Take heed in northern New South Wales and Queensland - they are becoming a little weedy - a garden escape - so do be careful of them.

However this plant fills a great spot in any shrubbery, it's a beaut gap filler.
