Can We Talk 2

The Dreaded Voodoo Plant

         Don't be lured by the exotic look of its mature leaves and dark stem. Do Not Plant This In The Ground! It takes over.

         It grows from a bulb, but spreads like wildfire. It grows a foot away from the main bulb. I suspect that if you don't dig up and dispose of every single little piece of it, that it will get mixed in with your mulch and start over in a new spot. I have dug and dug, sometimes, rather deeply, trying to uproot the whole plant.

          At first I thought I might leave one or two for looks. But after a few days, I realized it was all mixed in with the hostas my dad had so neatly lined up. I went back a second day with heavier tools and really turned over the dirt. I had to hold up the hosta leaves and claw up young plants that have only sprung up in the last few days. Today, I went out to admire my work, and I found even more dreaded voodoo plants. They seem to be like bamboo, which looks nice when newly grown, but in no time you have a bamboo jungle and need a machete to get through. You can't just leave some of it. You have to get rid of all of it. So you have to get rid of all the voodoo plant. What started with one plant, one year, and some selected digging each year after, resulted in a big pile of voodoo bulbs on my patio.

         I'm letting them dry out, but plan to put them in a trash bag and dispose of before my dad tries to compost them. Who knows how that would turn out? Just don't put it in your garden. If you love the name or the look of it, just put one bulb in a deep pot. When it expands, dig it out on newspaper, throw away all but one bulb ( or burn it), and return one bulb only to your pot. It's a curse to your flowerbeds.