Can You Grow Variegated Ginger Outside?

Variegated Ginger

• In the tropics, upright clumps of nonvariegated ginger can grow to 12 feet tall. Variegated ginger doesn't reach those heights -- 4 to 6 feet is more the norm -- but plants are quite impressive even at that size. Individual leaves, which vary in their green-yellow variegation patterns, can grow to 2 feet long and 6 inches across. Grown primarily to add some color to shade gardens, variegated ginger is sometimes incorrectly labeled as Alpinia nutans, a very different plant. There is a dwarf cultivar, however -- A. zerumbet "Variegata Dwarf" -- which grows to only 12 inches tall but has the same green and yellow variegated foliage and seashell-like flowers. The cultivar Variegata Chinese Beauty grows to 8 feet tall and features marbled dark green and light green foliage.

Growing Ginger

• Partial shade is ideal for variegated shell ginger, though it even tolerates full sun as long as there is plenty of soil moisture. Provide variegated ginger with rich, fertile soil high in organic soil, and feed plants monthly with a balanced fertilizer to keep them thriving. You can buy potted plants or start your own plants from rhizomes that look much like culinary and medicinal ginger root. Plant rhizomes 1 inch below the surface in sandy loam improved with well-rotted manure or shredded leaf mold. Keep soil evenly moist -- the crucial requirement.

Container Growing

• Variegated shell ginger is an excellent specimen plant for part shade, whether planted in the ground or grown in containers. Because the variegated cultivar grows less aggressively than the common species, it does well in pots. It makes an appealing patio plant and also grows well indoors in bright shade, such as near a sunny window. Give it plenty of water indoors or outdoors, to prevent drying that causes burning of leaf edges. Variegated ginger does better in high humidity as well. If you can't keep plants in a greenhouse or solarium, then be sure to place them on a layer of pebbles -- the pot always perched higher than the water -- which helps humidify the air immediately around the plant.

Flowers and Roots

• The name "shell ginger" comes from the resemblance of individual flowers to tiny seashells. Flowers are white with pale pink tips, carried in clusters at the end of arched stems. Variegated ginger flowers don't have the sweet fragrance ginger blossoms are known for, but vegetation is aromatic and sweet smelling if you crush it between your fingers. Roots of variegated ginger aren't typically used for medicinal or culinary purposes, but both roots and leaves contain the chemicals dehydrokavain and kavain, much like the kava plant, appreciated for its relaxing properties.