Images may show mature specimens and are provided as a guide only. As plants are living products, the size, shape and appearance of the stock supplied may vary from the images shown.
Nursery Direct
Green Shell Ginger
Alpinia zerumbet
Everything is included in this price: the plant, free delivery and professional installation
The price you see is the whole job: the plant supplied, delivered free and professionally installed. Done for you.
Supplied in 400mmtypically 1.5 to 2.5m tall on delivery
Want to see the actual plant?
The photo shows this species, not the individual plant reserved for you. Send us an enquiry and we usually reply within 1 business day with photos of the actual stock available in the size you want.
Request photosGetting it in: this size needs about 900mm of clear access. Measure the narrowest point on the route and tell us on the booking call. Standard access is included in the price, and anything unusual is quoted and agreed with you before work begins. What happens on installation day
Looking for a larger size?
Sizes shown are the sizes we currently source in this species. If you need larger specimens, project quantities or a size not listed, our sourcing team can look for it through our national supplier network. We confirm your exact stock with you on the booking call before anything ships.
Send An EnquiryYou order. We do the rest.
After checkout, our team contacts you to confirm site access and book a day that suits. Most orders are delivered and planted within 2 to 4 weeks of your booking call. Nothing else for you to organise.
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Product Details
Overview & Specifications
Price includes everything: the plant, free delivery and professional installation by our planting team. One price, whole job done.
Green Shell Ginger - Alpinia zerumbet
Shell ginger is what you plant when a shrub would read as too stiff and a palm too sparse. Alpinia zerumbet throws up a dense stand of leafy canes clothed in broad, glossy, banana-like leaves, filling the lower and middle storey of a subtropical garden within two or three seasons, then hanging waxy pink and white flower buds from the arching cane tips. It gives lushness at a scale most understorey plants cannot reach.
Why Green Shell Ginger
Cane Density: Mature clumps carry dozens of upright canes, so light and sightlines are blocked from ground level up to around 2m without any clipping.
Shell Flowers: Pendulous racemes of waxy, shell-like white and pink buds open to yellow throats streaked with red, mainly late spring into summer.
Shade Performance: It holds full leaf colour and flowers reasonably in filtered light where most flowering shrubs thin out and go leggy.
Aromatic Foliage: Crushed or brushed leaves release a warm spicy scent, which makes it worth siting along a path edge rather than at the back of a bed.
Clumping Habit: The rhizome widens the clump steadily outward rather than running through a garden bed, though the clump widens steadily and benefits from a root barrier or periodic division near paving.
Ideal Applications
Courtyard Screening: A row of clumps softens a boundary fence or neighbouring wall in a small space where a hedge would need constant clipping.
Poolside Planting: The large leaves and clumping habit suits pool surrounds where the spread is contained in frost free coastal gardens.
Understorey Filler: Planted in drifts beneath palms and established trees, it covers bare trunk zones and shaded soil.
Large Containers: A single clump in a wide pot gives an instant tropical presence on a terrace or balcony that catches morning sun.
Specimen & Installation
Spacing (screening/hedge): 1 to 1.2m
Spacing (feature/avenue): 1.5 to 2m
Best Planting Season: Spring and early summer in frost free zones; avoid planting into cold, wet winter soil
Soil & Drainage: Rich, moisture retentive but free draining loam, pH 5.5 to 7; it dislikes soil that stays saturated through winter
Establishment Care: Water deeply twice a week through the first summer and keep a 75mm mulch layer clear of the emerging canes. Cut spent flowering canes to the base each year and feed with a complete fertiliser in spring to keep new cane production strong.
Plant Details
Height: 2 to 3m
Width: 1.5 to 2.5m, widening with age
Growth Rate: Fast
Foliage: Evergreen
Light: Filtered sun to part shade; full sun is tolerated in humid coastal gardens with reliable moisture
Native to: East Asia, including southern China, Japan and the Ryukyu Islands
Flower Colour: White to shell pink buds opening to yellow throats marked red
Delivery & Installation
Delivery and installation are included in your price
No freight calculators and no separate installation quote for a standard installation. Your price covers specialist plant transport, positioning and professional planting by our installation team. The whole job, handled.
- Wrapped, secured and transported by specialist plant freight.
- Professionally planted, staked and finished by our install team.
- Our team confirms site access and schedules a time that suits you.
Installation
Professional installation included, never extra
Every plant we sell is planted by our professional installation team, and it's already in the price. We coordinate the delivery, the machinery and the planting for standard site access, so your only job is choosing the tree. Unusual access or engineering requirements? We'll confirm everything with you after checkout before any work begins.
Questions? Send An EnquiryWhy Nursery Direct
Every price includes supply, delivery and installation
Buying a mature tree often means three separate jobs: the plant, the freight and finding someone to plant it. We price the whole job as one: the tree, the delivery and the professional install.
- One price: supplied, delivered and installed
- Mature trees and specimen palms at every scale
- National sourcing for hard-to-find stock
- Residential, estate and commercial projects
How It Works
Place your order. We do the rest.
We Supply
Premium advanced stock, selected from a national network of wholesale growers.
We Deliver
Specialist plant freight brings your order to your door. Free, anywhere in Australia.
We Install
Our professional team plants, stakes, mulches and finishes the job on site.







