Zingiber officinale Seeds | Ginger
LATIN NAME: Zingiber officinale
COMMON NAME: Ginger
Plant Profile
Known to gardeners as Ginger, Zingiber officinale is a noteworthy species. Ginger has travelled the whole world from the warm forests where it began. Thick, branched, aromatic rhizome under soil is ginger of kitchen and spice trade. Plant is a fine, easy, generous addition to warm, humid, sheltered garden. Its appeal to pollinating insects adds a second, ecological layer to its ornamental one. For the small amount of care it requires, the return is remarkable.
Science & Biotechnology
Research touching on Zingiber officinale ranges from the botany of the Zingiber group to practical horticulture, including seed handling, propagation and the selection of superior forms. Ginger keeps a regular place in plant science, and plant has been studied for a very long time for aromatic rhizome and fine, warm, pungent character of the spice. It retains a following among breeders and collectors, which keeps seed stocks in circulation.
Uses & Benefits
In the garden, Ginger earns its place in borders, containers and mixed plantings, and it also rewards growers who raise plants for cutting, drying or kitchen use. Ginger pays its way across kitchen and the garden. Fine, leafy plant is also a handsome, easy addition to warm, humid garden, and small, orchid-like flowers add their own quiet charm. It has been written up in culinary and botanical papers for great spice trade, and it is a fine, generous plant of warm, sheltered, well-watered garden. After the first season it asks for very little beyond a place that suits it.
Ginger is one of the best-evidenced herbs on Earth: human trials support its rhizome for nausea of motion, pregnancy and chemotherapy, and for digestive comfort, driven by its gingerols and shogaols. It is equally at home in the spice rack, the tea pot and the medicine cabinet.
Growing from Seed
Sow fresh seed of Ginger under ordinary good conditions. Sow thinly on the surface of a loose, well-drained seed compost, cover lightly, water in gently and keep the tray in a sunny spot with even moisture. When the young plants are big enough to handle, space them into pots or a nursery row and let them size up before their final move.
Our Take
Once established, Ginger largely looks after itself. Moisture matters most while plants are young; established plants cope with far more.
Related Reading
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