Yuccas are these amazing new world plants with a vast natural range.

They grow all the way from Baja, California in the west, to Florida

in the east, Canada in the north, and Guatemala in the South. These

beauties have strong, evergreen sword or strap-like leaves, and they

produce dramatic spikes of glorious white flowers once a year.

 

Another more evocative name for them is ‘ghosts in the graveyard.’

This comes for the high number of yuccas growing wild in forgotten

graveyards, where their large white flower clusters appear as ‘ghosts’

in the moonlight.

 

Yuccas are drought tolerant to the extreme. Their heat and cold toler-

ance is also great. They only require a full to partial sun location and

a well-drained soil. May is a good month to plant them.  Some of my

favorites:

 

Big Bend or beaked yucca (Yucca rostrata). Also called sapphire

skies, this beauty has a rosette of sword-like leaves of a bluish to silver

color. Older specimens will form trunks and add a dramatic accent to

any landscape. These are my all-time favorites.

 

Adam’s Bright Edge (Yucca filamentosa) is a clumping, dwarf yucca

with narrow variegated foliage with yellow edged foliage. Its mature

height is 2 feet with a white flower stalk to 5 feet.

 

Color Guard (Yucca filamentosa) is a dwarf yucca with each leaf cen-

tered with yellow-gold foliage. Color guard will stay under 2 feet in

height and will spread to 3 feet in width. It produces a dramatic 5-foot

tall white flower spike.

 

Red Yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora) has evergreen, grassy-like foliage

to 2 feet with coral-red flower spikes to 6 feet. Red yucca is not in the

yucca genus but is closely related (agave). This plant is commonly

in central Texas as a low to no-water use evergreen perennial.  Hum-

mingbirds love their flowers. (1 gal. $9.99, and 5 gal. $34.99)

 

These are just a few of the yucca family that are suitable for the Hays

County and Austin area. With thoughtful placement, yuccas can make

our landscapes more beautiful and will be sure to last through any

droughts that come our way in future years.

                                        Happy gardening everyone!