Today I’m planting a tuber of the Dragon Lily (Dracunculus vulgaris). This arum grows around three feet tall and produces a large blood-red inflorescence that gets about eighteen inches long. When it blooms, it smells like rotting flesh, attracting flies to assist in pollinating it. Depending on how potent the scent becomes, it may find itself taking up residence out on my balcony this summer.
The larger tuber on the right is the one I’m planting today. The one on the eft is an equally strange (and smelly) arum I’ll be discussing and planting in a few days . The Dragon Lily, especially if mulched, can survive as far North as Zone 6. Given that I am in Zone 7b, if i were not living in an apartment and had a house instead, I could safely plant it outdoors and leave it there year-round. But since I’m in an apartment, this tuber will be placed into a pot and mainly grown under artificial lighting.
Using regular houseplant potting soil and a one gallon pot, I place a single tuber in the center of the pot and bury it. Since there is already a growth bud that is a few inches long, I bury it so that the very tip of the bud is visible above the soil line.
Normally, were I to plant it outdoors and in the ground, I’d bury the tuber about 5 to 6 inches deep. But since it will be growing indoors in a pot, I am only placing it a couple inches under the soil.
I then gently water it in, thoroughly dampening the soil until water begins to run out of the bottom of the pot.
Finally, I place it under very bright light; in this case eighteen inches beneath a 10,000 lumen LED fixture. That should be more than adequate to simulate full sunlight to encourage it to make strong initial growth.
Outdoors, Dragon Lily normally goes into bloom in late May or June. So it will likely be a very similar schedule growing indoors like this so long as the temperature remains warm and the light stays consistently bright every day.
The other smaller tuber you saw at the start of this post will be planted in a few days in a separate pot. That one, a Voodoo Lily (Sauromatum venosum) is fairly small and likely too small to bloom. So I’m in no particular rush to plant it just yet, as it will only grow vegetatively this first year.