Varieties

• Three of the most widespread gingers are common ginger (Zingiber officinale), beehive ginger (Zingiber spectabile), and butterfly ginger (Hedychium coronarium zingibericae), also called white ginger lily or garland lily. Common ginger is grown for its culinary uses but has an attractive yellow flower with a light fragrance. Beehive ginger plants and butterfly ginger plants are large, showy ornamental plants grown for their fragrant flowers. Beehive ginger sends up 6- to 8-feet-tall flower stalks and produces large, fragrant, pink, orange, red and yellow exotic flowers in the shape of pinecones with honeycomb-like patterns. Butterfly ginger, also called white ginger lily or garland lily, produces large stalks, 4 to 6 feet tall, and large, white orchid-like, sweetly fragrant flowers.
  
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Cultivation

• Ginger grows from rhizomes or plant divisions in rich soil with a lot of organic matter such as compost and aged manure. It is a tropical perennial that will die if left to freeze in the ground in cold climates, but overwinters well if stored in loose sand in temperatures between 45 and 55 degrees or grown on in heated hoop houses or cold frames. Ginger grows in partial to full shade, with its leaves providing food to fatten the rhizomes, which grow horizontally and send up new shoots. Ginger likes plenty of moisture with good drainage and needs regular water to produce the best rhizomes, harvested after 10 months of growth.
  
  

Culinary and Medicinal Uses

• While common ginger is grown for its spicy, edible rhizomes, the flower buds of butterfly ginger are eaten like vegetables and add a zesty flavor to salads, soups and stir fry. The flower buds are also added to boiling water and tea for a spicy fragrance and flavor. When the rhizomes of common ginger are mature, usually after 10 months of growth, they are dug up, washed off and dried. Ginger's strength, flavor and medicinal properties improve with age. The fresh or dried root is sliced, grated or finely chopped and used in baking, cooking, stewing, soups, salads and beverages. Tea made from fresh or powdered ginger soothes nausea, stomach upset and diarrhea, helps with menstrual problems and is a sleep aid, according to online resource Herbs 2000. Ginger also has anti-inflammatory properties that ease arthritis and colitis.
  
  

Fragrance

• Gingers have a heavy perfume, and the butterfly ginger has one of the richest fragrances of the gingers. Common ginger is a smaller plant, with smaller flowers than the ornamentals, and less noticeable fragrance. Costus gingers, or spiral gingers, produce fragrant bottlebrush-shaped flowers at the ends of short flower stalks.