Winter Care of Curcuma in Cold Climates
If you live in a cold-winter area (one that regularly experiences frosty or freezing temperatures), you’ll need to bring
your curcuma indoors to protect it from the chilly conditions. Like Northern perennials, though, curcuma needs to go
dormant, so you can’t treat it like a houseplant. Rather, you’ll need to store the tubers in a cool, dry place.
For curcuma planted in the ground, carefully dig the tubers in fall, when the plant’s foliage begins to turn yellow.
Gently clean loose soil from the tubers, then let them dry in a warm, sunny place for a day or so. Once the tubers are
dry, store them in a container with coarse sand or peat moss. Don’t seal the container -- let it breathe. It’s best to
store curcuma tubers in a cool place (50F/10C) over winter. You don’t want the tubers to completely dry up over winter,
so sprinkle just a small splash of water in the sand/moss periodically.
For curcuma in containers, you can stop
watering the container once the foliage starts to go yellow. Let the potting mix dry (and remove any other plants that
may be growing with the curcuma), then you can store the entire pot in a cool place (50F/10C) for winter. Sprinkle just
a bit of water in the pot a couple of times over winter so the tubers don’t completely dry out.
Bring
your curcuma back outdoors to a shaded or partly shaded spot in spring after all danger of frost has passed. With warm
temperatures and moisture, the tubers should quickly resume new growth.
Curcuma Care in Warm-Winter Areas
Because they are subtropical plants, curcuma don’t need special care in winter. So if you live in an area, such as
South Florida, that doesn’t experience frost (or only very rarely), you can keep these beautiful plants outdoors all
year. One important thing to know is that, like Northern perennials, curcuma do go dormant in winter. That means if
you grow curcuma in your garden, the leaves and flowers will disappear from November to March or April. Keep your
landscape beds looking good this time of year by planting annuals or groundcovers.
If you’re growing
curcuma in containers in subtropical areas, you can leave them in their pots in the winter. The curcuma plants will
go dormant, so move the pots to an area where the empty containers won’t bother you. Or, plant the containers with
colorful winter annuals so you can leave them in place.
That’s how easy it is to care for curcuma in
winter. Once they go dormant, you can basically ignore them!
Get winter-care tips for tropical hibiscus.
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Check out our Help Center for answers to commonly asked questions. And if you don't find what you need there, you can quickly email us for more information!Written by Justin Hancock
