Guest Author - Tracey Anderson

Two years ago, I saw a two-for-the-price-of-one offer for a “voodoo bulb” in a bulb catalog. It was very inexpensive, and I had never heard of it; I was curious. I went ahead and ordered it and gave one bulb to a friend while planting mine in my herb garden. My friend dropped hers into a sunny ledge garden and we both kind of forgot about it.

That year spring was a really wet one. Something bloomed from the bulb, but it seemed to be drowned out. Moreover, I thought it was kind of – well – ugly. At the end of the season I pulled it out. Last year I planted a much wider range of herbs and pretty much used up the space in that bed. My friend told me that hers had divided and that she had pretty many new plants near the original planting.

This spring, I planted my annual herbs as usual. For some reason, however, my chives kept dying. Normally, chives grew abundantly in that bed. Figuring I just had a bum starter plant, I decided to plant two chive plants in case one of them died. Both died! I had no idea what was going on until I saw them.

My bed was overrun with “voodoo” plants! How could they keep coming up when I’d pulled them out two years before? It was time to search the Internet.

I learned that what I had was called voodoo stick or voodoo lily (Sauromatum guttatum) and that it’s from the Araceae family. To me, it looked like a plant from prehistoric times; other gardeners think it’s beautiful. I guess there is no accounting for taste. First, the lily produces a stem of green and white splotches along with a couple of leaves that seem to roll out from the stem. Then it changes color, darkening to maroon, which is the color of the “flower”. The smell of this “beauty” is awful.

Of course, my problem wasn’t growing them; I needed to get rid of them! I was positive that the voodoo was working against me and choking the life out of the soil, keeping my herbs from nutrients they needed to survive. I started digging. And digging. And digging some more. I kept pulling out stems with what I can only describe as bulblets. I really thought I had gotten it all.

Two days later, there were more shoots of the voodoo lily coming up. My boyfriend dug out the rest of it – or so he thought. We keep pulling them out as soon as we see them, but we’re beginning to wonder if we’ll ever get rid of them.

Well, that’s the story of the voodoo lily. I suppose that if I had planted it somewhere else, where it wouldn’t interfere with other plants, I might like it a little more. Now, however, I believe it to be evil…

So, my advice is this: if you would like to try to plant this, first pick a spot where it can grow hardily. You might want to choose a spot that’s out of the way in order to combat the smell.

Me, I’ll just keep pulling the shoots out as they pop up. I don’t need any more voodoo in my herb garden!