Flowering White Ginger

White ginger surrounded by chayote squash leaves. 

We’ve had beautiful days of white ginger – nearly three months of ginger. Maybe because of the wet summer and rain that stretched into early October. I don't remember the ginger blooming that long last year, or maybe it would bloom more frequently if I watered the year regularly. It's been rather dry the last few weeks, which may tempt more rain clouds. The first photo was taken in late July, and the others were taken about a week ago. White ginger is exquisitely fragrant, but the flowers don't last very long, only a day or two when cut. 

One way to keep the blossoms looking nice is to carefully trim and peel away the dead flowers, since sometimes new blossoms are emerging from the same place as the dead flower. Also, they are full of ants! So it's important to really rinse the flowers down outside with a garden hose, wait a few minutes, turn the flowers upside down and keep spraying with water. Usually there's still a few pesky ants hiding inside, but it's too much work to get every single ant. 

I had to trim off the dead flowers and move away some ants
before taking this photo!

A footnote to yesterday's post. Unfortunately, New Jersey did get hit by the nor'easter, right on the heels of Sandy. So many residents still don't have power and are dealing with more difficulties. So it's very rough over there right now. I'm wondering how well the postal service is working over there. Does anyone know if people are getting mail ok?