Hedychium spicatum CC12-7308

These are robust plants from seed collected by Chris Chadwell in northern India in 2012. Chris is extremely knowledgeable on the flora of Nepal, Kashmir and northwest India having done nearly 30 extensive botanical expeditions to those areas. This species is particularly interesting to us, as not only is it perfectly hardy for us in our gardens but it extends the geography in our accessions: it joins our shorter-stature 2003 collection from near eastern Bhutan, along with our 2006 collection from Sichuan. We like geeking out on a species and when we can observe the various expressions of morphology as influenced by the diversity of its range, it really doesn't get much better for us. Safe to say we get a "botanical flush". Anyway, this hardy true ginger relative is good down to zone 7b with enough mulch for short durations to single digits and happy in bright shade to mostly sun. This species blooms reliably for us every year outside and makes us very happy in October with its open spires of white crane fly flowers highlighted by salmon-pink working parts. Moist with drainage.