Ginger Died
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: MaryLou
Posted on: May 28, 2003

I bought a ginger plant last spring and planted it in my herb garden which grows every thing perfectly fine but my ginger died can you tell me what I did wrong or does this happen with some ginger. I went by the instructions.

I am assuming that you are writing about the spice ginger (Zingiber officinale). The other possibility is that you got a wild ginger (Asarum canadense) but that has completely different needs.

You don’t say where you are located or when exactly the ginger plant died. One possibility is that the plant died over winter because of cold. Ginger is hardy to zone 9 and up and in a more temperate zone it will perish over winter.

If instead your experience was that the plant never thrived from the moment you planted in the garden last spring then there are several possible causes. One could be that the plant was weak to begin with and could never get on track. Ginger is slower growing than most other common herbs such as mint, thyme and basil, so it takes longer to get accustomed to new conditions. If it is weak to begin with then this adaptation process may not unfold fully.

Alternatively, ginger requires richer soil and more moisture than other herbs. So while the other herbs thrived in hot, dry conditions where the soil, for example, was a sandy less fertile type, ginger might not have thrived as well. If conditions were cool in the first few weeks last spring – perhaps even with a touch of frost on the coldest nights -- then that would have set ginger back also.

If you feel that the most likely cause was that the plant was weak to begin with, we are happy to offer a credit refund which you can use to reorder the plant on a future order. Please contact the customer service department at custserv@richters.com. Include a copy of this note for reference, along with enough details (name, customer number, or order number) so we can find you in our files.

Back to Growing Herbs | Q & A Index

Copyright © 1997-2024 Otto Richter and Sons Limited. All rights reserved.