Myoga Ginger (and Mint Root)

I just received my plants from Sean at Edible Acres.
I'm stoked and fearful!
I've never spent this much on herbaceous perennials.
I think the myoga ginger could do well in a raised bed by the wall of my sister's house.
It might go in containers, to facilitate babying, and bringing indoors.
I have some 55 gallon sub irrigated barrels with berry bushes in them, I wonder how they would do along side with those or in one of their own.

The mint root I might put in containers, not for fear of their escape, but to aid in harvest

I have two mint roots and  at least 6 myoga.
I think at east two of the myoga should go in the ground, as insurance against human error.

It's always exciting trying a new plant! How cold/hot do you get William?
I've tried both of these and failed. The mioga I got from someone further South in the UK who found it too invasive! I planted it in shade as recommended, and it faded away. I think with me it would have done better in sun.
The mint root I know as crosnes, or chinese artichoke (Stachys affinis). Again it has a bit of a reputation for becoming invasive, but not here! Again probably slightly warmer and reasonably damp would have been better. It found the polytunnel too dry, and outside too cool. I do much better with Stachys palustris - marsh woundwort, which grows in damp places here as a native, and can have quite sizeable tubers. I encourage it in my tree field and try and propagate it into likely spots.
Of the two I'd probably like to try the mioga again - I like perennials I don't have to dig up to harvest, and they are aesthetically rather more intersting.

Well I'm n zone 6b Which translates to:-5 °F/-20.6 C to on the low end.
On the high end, we regularly get over 90 F/32 C.
Last year we had a long hot dry time that I wasn't ready for.
Only the corn enjoyed that, everything else suffered.

Edible Acres is located in Zone 5, which goes down to -20F/-29C, so their plants should do well here.

I'm mostly worried about them getting enough water.
I'm usually garden through intensely preparing beds followed by long periods neglect.
Eventually they will have to fend for themselves, but I want to give them a good start in life.

My sister is a chef, so establishing a patch at her place would be nice, but her garden neglect goes even harder than mine!

My own herb garden is about to be disrupted because of the new water line the city is installing.

The sub irrigated barrels are right next to the driveway and fed with rainwater from the roof of the garage.
If I plant the ginger there, it should have a good start on life.
Same goes for the mint root.
One it's gets established, I can propagate it elsewhere.

So it sounds like the plants should be OK in the winter. The mint root could be a replant perennial as it dies back in winter - might be a back up (check what the vendors say). I suspect a bit of shade will help them get through the hotter summer time temperatures with you.

To preface: I'm in zone 6 as well, right on the border between 6a and 6b, with weather pretty much like yours (eastern PA).  I live halfway down a steep north-facing slope (600-ish vertical feet of mountain to the south of me), so I don't get as much overall light as somebody on flat land.  Both types of plants went directly in the ground for me, never tried any kind of container or even a raised bed.

My personal experience with mint root:  I planted it on the south side of my peach tree in a space that gets maybe 8 hours total sun (would be more but the peach branches cast dappled shade in the middle of the day).  Only like two of them put up any top growth.  The year I did it was pretty wet, so I didn't need to do any additional watering.  They seemed healthy before the fall dieback, but nothing came up the next year.  It made me very sad, but I justify it by telling myself I wouldn't have liked eating them anyway.

My personal experience with myoga:  The first set of roots I bought are doing okay, despite being planted in terrible, barely-improved heavy clay and shale soil.  It didn't help that I planted them upside down, which I only realized when I accidentally dug one up a month later.  Despite that, they did send up some spindly shoots and one or two edible buds that first year.  They're in part sun with a western exposure, between an elderberry and a juvenile apple.  I didn't want to move them because they just weren't very robust, so I bought more last year (I think 2 years after my initial purchase, maybe 3?).  These I planted in much nicer soil, right at the dripline of a huge (15' tall) Rhododendron on the eastern side of the house.  They get 6 or so hours of full morning sun, then shade for the rest of the day.  Even though this past year was hellaciously dry, they thrived.  I harvested a dry pint of buds and let twice that amount go to flower (some intentionally, but most because I missed them until it was too late).

So here's what I think worked better for my myoga: morning sun/ afternoon shade; loamy, consistently moist soil with a slightly acidic pH; no competition from mint (the western patch is in an area of moderate mint encroachment).  There was definitely deer browse on both, but I fenced off the newer ones so that probably did give them a leg up.  I also let the chickweed and clover grow in both patches as a kind of living mulch because I only have limited mulching material and they're low priority areas; nevertheless, it seems to work.

I'm hearing a lot of importance placed on morning sun, afternoon shade.
The sun irrigated barrels get the exact opposite, shade until noon, then no shade at all .
I can add artificial shade, but it won't give me morning sun.

I do have a spot that has morning sun, and afternoon shade.
It's over at the garden, on the east side of a fence line.
There is a very tall bed of partially decomposed leaves that is waiting to be occupied by something.
There are also other spots along that side of the fence line, near the base of some struggling fruit trees.

We're also trying myoga! Planted last year, it will be interesting to see if they survived the winter. They're planted in a couple of our "stump beds" - basically completely rotted-down pine or spruce stumps with added char, seaweed and crushed shells. It's extremely well-draining at least, which is good since they might be a tiny bit of an edge case hardiness-wise. Not for minimum temperatures, but for winter length and lack of consistent snow cover. Well, we shall see!

William Bronson wrote:I'm hearing a lot of importance placed on morning sun, afternoon shade.
The sun irrigated barrels get the exact opposite, shade until noon, then no shade at all .
I can add artificial shade, but it won't give me morning sun.  

Interesting. I've heard the opposite for trees at least, that less-hardy species should be sheltered from the morning sun to avoid branch damage in the winter. Doesn't apply to herbaceous plants though. What's the advantage of morning sun relative to afternoon sun, do you know?

Eino Kenttä wrote:What's the advantage of morning sun relative to afternoon sun, do you know?

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think I read that morning sun is "cooler" because it has more of the blue wavelength, while late afternoon/ evening sun is "warmer" because it has more of the red wavelength (because of our relative position to the sun an how the atmosphere splits the light, something sciencey like that).  I might not be understanding that correctly though.

Also, I think it's just generally hotter at the end of the day and direct sun only increases that.  I'd rather sit in full sun in the morning, when it's still cool, than at 5pm, when the heat of the day has soaked into everything, so why would plants be different (I might be anthropomorphizing a little here).

Right, that would explain it. In our climate, most plants will need all the warmth they can get during the day (we get quite a bit of 12-degrees-C-and-rain type weather in the summers) so here it wouldn't make much sense to shield them from the afternoon sun, but if it's 35 degrees C, that's a different story.

They are here, and half of them are planted in this barrel