Time to bring a touch of exoticiness to the plant of the week and I couldn’t resist making this stunning hardy ginger lily. Indeed it looks so tropical that’s surely it can’t be hardy in the uk but it is indeed a lot more tougher than it looks, just a good bit of mulch on top of the plant after it’s been finished by the hard frosts of the autumn.
It is a tall plant reaching an impressive 1.2m by this time of the year and the slightly peachy scented flowers start appearing late july and normally at their peak by mid august, the flowers of this form, are the biggest of all the forms of densiflorum. The beautiful tropical looking foliage starts appearing in late spring. Stephen was discovered by the great Tony Schilling in the Dudh Kosi Valley in eastern Nepal in 1966.

Soilwise it likes a good fertile soil with some moisture retention in it. A good mulch in the early winter should be enough feed to get it though the summer.

It is available from a few good nurseries like http://www.edulis.co.uk and http://www.panglobalplants.com