Douglasville Georgia here, we have a large potted ginger plant that we want to bring indoors and keep alive in hopes of seeing it flower.
Last year it was allowed to die back outside then brought in and kept dormant til spring. We were late getting it outside so it greened up and grew nicely but did not flower. The year before it was outdoors in the ground, and formed 2or 3 flower buds before dying back in an early cold spell. That was when we potted it and brought it inside to stay dormant.
This Fall I'd like to bring it in since it is still green, and put it under grow lights to keep it viable. It has no buds now, but hoping for flowers.
Any tips on doing this right?

I think, even inside, it will go dormant. My daughter grows ginger as houseplants and they go dormant in winter. The ginger plants, not the daughter.

This might totally depend on what genus of ginger it is. Do you know? Is it a Hedychium (butterfly ginger)? Zingiber (pinecone ginger)? Curcuma (hidden Lily ginger)?

I have a Hedychium Anne Bishop and a Curcuma Tumeric that I grow in containers. Both of them flower during late summer and fall. I let them take a frost than cut off the foliage and place them in a cool dark space, with just a small amount of water during the winter, come spring they start the cycle all over again. Zone 4b

Hedychiums are evergreen and never stop growing unless they are knocked back by a freeze. They grow in a linear fashion off of a creeping rhizome.Mine start blooming in May and will keep blooming. They are designed to bloom and set seeds like an annual in a very short period of time. However they do not go dormant. Since every stalk blooms only once, od stalks die off naturally while new ones continue to emerge


Zingibers, the pinecone gingers, which includes Z. officinale which is the common culinary ginger, do go dormant in winter after they bloom. The exception is Z. spectabile, which will stay up if not knocked back by freeze




Kaempferia (peacock gingers) go dormant in winter no matter what.


Curcuma go dormant in winter no matter what and there are 3 types...spring blooming,

summer blooming and late summer/early fall blooming If your curcuma has not bloomed already it most likely will not this season

Costus (the spiral gingers) are not true gingers but are in the same family. Most (not all) are evergreen unless they freeze back.




Hopefully this will help you figure out what you have and then you will know what to expect

Thank you to everyone who answered and for the beautiful pictures. Mine is a culinary Ginger and so far it is limping along indoors, staying green mostly but not flowering. My husband has put a light on it during the day so we'll see if that has any effect positive or negative

There is no 'ordinary' ginger! All of them are great. It would greatly help you to find out which genus and species you actually have. It will help you a lot in its cultivation

The culinary ginger is Zingiber officinale.

Yes I said that above in my post