Saturday, January 23, 2016

The Ginger Festival

Today we went to the Ginger Factory at Yandina - about an hours drive up the road. It was their annual Flower and Food Festival. Ginger plants, ginger recipes, cooking demonstrations and gardening talks.

I did not buy one ginger plant.


As we walked into the main cafeteria we were greeted by this enormous floral arrangement featuring beehive and torch gingers as well as various heliconia and other flowers. (This is just the lower half)

Heliconias (my favourite flower) made up the upper half


To get an idea of scale, you can see it was twice the height of a person.
 

There's an extensive garden shaded by large trees. The ideal growing conditions for gingers and other tropical plants.

Love this combination

 
This was the view from where we sat to eat lunch.
 
They sell all manner of ginger products - cosmetics, candles, etc, jams and sauces and chocolate coated ginger (some of that came home with us)
I didn't buy any ginger plants because they need more shelter than we can provide yet. Heliconias, on the other hand, don't mind full sun and when they grow tall will help provide shade for the ginger plants I might buy next year.
I did buy a few heliconias
 

and
they're already in the ground.



3 comments:

  1. That is one HUGE floral arrangement....very beautiful.
    When you said you didn't buy any gingers I was stunned, but as I read on, I smiled, for you couldn't help but purchase new heliconia plants...they look healthy and ready to grow into their new garden....what colours are they?

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  2. Yum, now I'm craving dark chocolate coated ginger!

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  3. That is an amazing arrangement. I think it is hard when setting up a garden not to go overboard. little plants grow into big plants pretty fast.

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Thanks for commenting.