FRIENDS FROM ROCKY COME AND STAY AND WE HEAD TO THE GINGER FACTORY...

 We've had good friends from Rocky down staying with us on the Sunshine Coat.  The boys have been out fishing for a couple of days and have pretty much visited all the fishing, camping and hardware stores.  The weather hasn't been the best today.... no good for fishing anyway so we decided to take a trip up to Yandina to visit the Ginger Factory for lunch.

I visited the Ginger Factory back in September when the girls from Rocky were here, but Steve and the others haven't been here in over 30 years so they were all keen to visit,

A visit to the Ginger Factory

We enjoyed having lunch there...

This visit is quite different to our last visit here.  This visit a lot of the ginger was flowering so we really enjoyed our walk around the park admiring all the beautiful ginger flower... 

Ornamental, or flowering ginger are different to the edible variety.  These one  are just for show and they can certainly be very beautiful with a range of sizes, flower shapes and colours.  They are also tropical and subtropical and won't tolerate winters with temperatures below about 10 degrees C.

Ideal conditions for growing these ginger plants are at least some shade, rich moist soil, and good drainage.  A dose of fertilizer once a month with increase the bloom of flowers also...

Ornamental, or flowering, gingers are different from the edible variety. These are just for show, and they can certainly be beautiful, with a range of sizes, flower shapes, and colors. These are also tropical and sub-tropical plants that will not tolerate winters that are much colder than 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 C.)

Read more at Gardening Know How: Ornamental Ginger Plants – A Guide To Flowering Ginger Varieties https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/ornamental-ginger/ornamental-ginger-plant-varieties.htm

Ornamental, or flowering, gingers are different from the edible variety. These are just for show, and they can certainly be beautiful, with a range of sizes, flower shapes, and colors. These are also tropical and sub-tropical plants that will not tolerate winters that are much colder than 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 C.).

Read more at Gardening Know How: Ornamental Ginger Plants – A Guide To Flowering Ginger Varieties https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/ornamental-ginger/ornamental-ginger-plant-varieties.htm

 

Some types of ornamental ginger plants have red, pink, yellow, white, or orange flowers. Flowering ginger plants can look like shells, clusters of flowers in the shape of cones, or like small lily flowers.

Some parts of ornamental ginger varieties may be edible. You may even find some types of ginger plants that are good for your garden or for growing indoors.

Yandina has the perfect climate for growing ginger, in that it meets the tropical, sub tropical climate and they have a consistent rain fall in the area yearly.  Not only is this the area for the ornamental ginger but also the home of Buderim Ginger...

This visit we had a lovely wander around their plant nursery... well at least where it wasn't too wet to walk and they had a fine example of the beautiful flowering  Lavender Dragon Ginger.  This showy ginger family plant is rare to find. It has unique flowers that emit sweet honeysuckle like fragrance and resembles dancing ladies when they move in the wind.

This particular plant was for display purposes only, probably because it is so unique so we did take a photo of the name of the plant for future reference as it was truly beautiful when out in flower...
 

 

 

 

They had quite a few different varieties of the Hidden Ginger plants in several different colours...

The Hidden Ginger is a Malaysian native and is also often called Queen Lily, Siam Tulip, Hidden Lily. It has a spicy scent and a bitter taste. It produces beautiful flowers of bright purple, pink, or orange colors. The rhizomes are used for medicinal purposes.

Hidden Ginger

AFter visiting the nursery, we headed for one of the gift shops on site.  When I was previously here, I bought a beautiful mug and coaster with one of the Australian native flowers on it.  I love it so much that I had planned to buy another three of them with different Australian native flowers on it so that I had a set of four.  

Unfortunately they don't have any left,  apparently they are a discontinued line and they had a sale before Christmas where they reduced the prices and they all sold.  I could understand that as they were a lovely mug, great size and were beautiful.  I am so sad that I missed out on picking up a few more.  The moral of the story is in future, if you see something that you really like, you might as well get the whole lot otherwise you might miss out...

Steve was pretty impressed that they offered a whole range of bee products from books on bee keeping, the life of bees, bee toys, mug, insect houses and much more...

New range of mug and coasters...

I must admit, we were pretty impressed with the beautiful Australian giftware and we will definitely be paying a visit here before we head overseas again.  Lots of lovely good quality gifts that a very practical and usable but also very Australian. 

Beautiful flowering ginger arrangements.

 

 They also had a range of very quirky teapots which were quite impressive and worth photographing.  Whether they would be practical or not is another thing...

 

They had these awesome 3D place mats, posters and postcards which our Danish Grandchildren would love.  We've taken note because we think that getting a couple of these 3D place mats would make a great gift to take over for the boys...

We now just need to decide on which ones to get them. 

Steve admiring the 3D place mats

The next little store we popped into was the toy shop.  They have some great little toys in there and not the sort of toys you would usually find in other toy shops or chain stores...

I figured that all of our grandsons would absolutely love these dinosaurs as they all seem to love them at the moment...

A blast from the past - all the Playschool characters...

I loved all these golliwogs.  They bring back so many memories of my childhood as we had them..

Beautiful rag dollies also...

They had quite a range of Fairy houses too and these one would appeal to our grand daughter as she already has a fairy garden set up in their front garden..

Karen and I came across some lovely mugs with our name on them.  Of course I had to take a photo of Karen with her namesake mug...

From here we took a wander along the path through the gardens to admire all the beautiful flowering ginger.

This walk was so different from the last time I had walked along this path.  Last time, none of the ginger was flowering,  this time it was pretty exciting to see all beautiful colours and the walk along the path was so much more interesting...

There was lot of lovely Bee Hive Ginger flowering in shades and colours...  Beehive Ginger is famous as an ornamental plant due to its unique skep-beehive like yellow inflorescences that become red once it matures.   All parts have a strong gingery fragrance, leaves and rhizomes are ingredients in making local dishes and appetizers.

The Bitter Ginger was all out in flower and looked amazing...   It is often called the Pinecone ginger too due to the fact that it looks like a pinecone.  Also known as shampoo ginger, it tastes bitter as compared to the common ginger and added in food flavoring and appetizers. It’s used primarily in herbal medicines and making shampoos.

I also loved many of the ferns with their beautiful colours.  The one above was so vibrant with the light and dark green on the upside of the leaf and the beautiful red colour on the back side.  I would love to know the name of this plant as I wouldn't mind getting some to grow in my own garden...

I think my favourite Ginger is the beautiful torch ginger which is so impressive when flowering...

This tropical plant can be up to 15 feet tall and looks glorious with its big and vibrant flowers that appear in red, pink, or orange color. The whole plant is edible, and fruits, seed pods, seeds, flowers stems are eaten in many Asian countries. Flower buds have a piquant taste and used in traditional Indonesian and Thai dishes.

The beautiful torch ginger...

There is also a wide variety of Heliconias planted at the Ginger Factory and perhaps my favourite is the Heliconias Rostrata.  These beautiful plants are also a tropical and sub tropical plant and was originally a native origin from Central and South America, the Caribbean and South Pacific Islands.  They really are vigorous growers and with more than 500 species... As hybrids and cultivars plants, varieties can range in height from 60cm to 6m producing inflorescence bract or flowering stems that are usually red, yellow or both.  They can alsos sometimes be pink or green.  They make exceptional cut flowers with long lasting characteristics which are often used in public landscaping situations...

The first time I had really seen these amazing flowers was when we visited The Cairns Botanical Gardens.  I guess it was really a visit to these Botanical Gardens that made me fall in love with Ginger plants. 

 

Lovely mosaics along the paths around the Ginger Factory

More beautiful flowering Bee Hive Ginger plants are everywhere around the paths...

It is a good thing that the Buderim Ginger factory outgrew it's Buderim beginnings a good 40 years ago as it is now situated on a beautiful nine hectare property in Yandina and can offer so much more to the tourist.  

There are a couple of things at the Ginger Factory that we haven't managed to do yet and one of those is the Gruffalo Trail.  It is a another good excuse for us to visit again and next time we come we will be able to bring the grandchildren to do it...  It was too wet for us to do this visit as we were still experiencing intermittent showers and we didn't want to run the risk of getting wet.  

Appartently this adventure melds reality with digital effects so I am sure it will delight the kids.  Before you head into the deep, dark forest, you need to download the Gruffalo Spotters 2 App.  Appartently thi is where the fun begins.  By wildly flapping your arms and stomping your feet, the characters of the book, such as fox, mouse and owl all come to life.  There is plenty of opportunities to take photos of yourself going wild in the woods and I am sure the kids would love this as you wander through the walk beneath the shady trees.  I think that we as adults will appreciate it more with the kids in tow and seeing the wonder on their faces. 

 If you visit during a week day, you can also take the opportunity to see the factory in action.  This tour gives you first hand knowledge on how ginger is grown and harvested, before being turned into some of the yummy products that are on offer in the Ginger Shop.  It also tells the story of how ginger found a home in Queensland.  Prior to the Great Depression it was imported from China, but after a cut in upply, and with perfect growing conditions here around the Sunshine Coast (high rainfall, high humidity and rick volcanic soil0, five farmers decided to invest in the future and planted a crop.  The rest is history.

 

As we were heading across to the Gingerbread Boat ride we came across the largest gingerbread house we have ever seen, all made out of edible ginger.  Very impressive indeed...

Large edible ginger bread house...

 We wanted over to relive the magic of the childhood tale of the Gingerbread man and all had our photo taken with him before heading into the chocolate house to check out the chocolate and then view the Disney style boat cruise that takes you around the World.  This was something else we have left so that we can take the children on as we were told that the story comes alive through around 250 animated puppets and effects, as the gingerbread man tries to escape some hungry chefs. 

Charlie and Steve with the Gingerbread man

Giant game of Snakes and Ladders

We even came across Santa's workshop here on the Sunshine Coast

Yummy chocolate

The Ginger Factory will also introduce you to the fascinating world of the busy bee and the critical role in plays in life on our planet.  This particularly appealed to Steve as he has kept bees for the past  40 years and just loves them.  They hold a live bee show which gives guests the chance to loo  inside the working life if a hive behind glass.  They also hold a bee smoking demonstration and tell you avout eh extraordinary way bees communite by doing the "waggle"dance.  It's a lot to take in but I can guarantee you that you will leave iwth a broader understanding of what goes into every jar of honey and at the end of the show you get the opportunity to taste five different varieties of honey, each with its own distinct flavour. 

By the time we had done all this it was time to leave... The boys still wanted to get back and check out Anaconda and Kings before going home. 

It was a great outing and was well and truly mid afternoon by the time we left.  We all enjoyed the visit and deemed that we would return and would be bringing back our grandchildren.