How to Trim Ginger Plants
Ornamental gingers and culinary ginger (zingiber officinale),are grown indoors in all climates, or outdoors in zones 9 through 11 of the United States. Trimming rules are the same for all gingers. Most ginger species' foliage dies off in the fall (whether it is indoors or outdoors) as the plant goes dormant. With others, the foliage is killed off by freezing weather, but the underground rhizome survives. A small subset of ginger plants (Alpinia zerumbet species) bloom on last year's growth: If that growth is killed by freezing or is trimmed off, the plant will survive but will not bloom the next year. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Cut away browned, dried out, diseased or insect-damaged foliage on the ginger plant using sharp scissors at any time of the year. If most of the leaf is still healthy, trim away only the diseased area. Carefully wipe the blades of the scissors with a paper towel soaked in rubbing alcohol between cuts if you are removing diseased plant material to avoid spreading the disease to other places on the plant.
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Cut all stems and foliage to the ground when a ginger plant goes dormant in the fall. (The stems and foliage will dry up and turn yellow.) This will happen with some varieties whether they are indoor or outdoor plants.
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Cut away any ginger foliage and stems that are killed by frost or freezing if your plant is grown outdoors (or any foliage killed by drafts from a too-cold window indoors).
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Tips & Warnings
Ginger hardiness varies. True gingers (of the zingiberaceae variety) are tropical plants. Some can be grown in zone 9; they will die back to the ground, but the rhizomes will regrow in the spring. Others are only hardy to zones 10 and 11. "Woodland" gingers are not true gingers, although many are hardy (and native to) northern woodlands as far north as zone 3.
