Blue Ginger

(Dichorisandra thyrsiflora)

My first Girl in the Green Instagram post was of my blue ginger (Dichorisandra thyrsiflora) so I think it’s quite fitting that my first blog is the same! When we bought our house it had a lot of lawn, a scrappy looking happy plant (Dracena) and one very overgrown garden bed. The garden bed was was filled with arrowhead vine, weeds and a rather dead lilly pilly - but there was also this blue ginger and a cane begonia, both of which I kept.

By the end of that first summer the blue ginger was amass with flowers and blue banded bees, which make quite a racket buzzing away in the flowers, especially in the morning when everything else is quiet.

That garden bed was also the first patch I made a garden in at our new house. I filled it with gingers, heliconia and caladium. Fast-forward a few years and I’m re-doing it again, ripping out the heliconia which has taken over and making it more of a space for my orchids. But the blue ginger is definitely staying.

Blue ginger isn’t really a ginger but it does grow from rhizomes (a stem that grows like a root). Yesterday I found that in addition to the rhizomes it also has cool potato-like storage roots. Both of these help the plant over-winter, storing energy for it to regrow in spring. It doesn’t die back entirely here in the subtropics but it does get a bit scrappy and I find it better to cut back the majority of the stems to make way for fresh new growth. It’s easy to grow and tolerates sun or shade (though flowers better with more light). I don’t find it overly thirsty and to be honest it doesn’t need that much attention. Except in Summer when the sound of the bees buzzing in the flowers is amplified and I can’t help but stand for ages and watch them going about their business :)