Find a plant:

Genus Yucca

Yucca filamentosa Photo/Illustration: Jennifer Benner

YUK-ah

These adaptable plants are indigenous to North and Central America and the West Indies. They are grown for their decorative, sword-like leaves that vary in rosette form, leaf width, shades of green or blue, and variegation. They produce very large spikes of hanging bell-shaped flowers that are most often white. They are ideal for containers, desert gardens, gravel gardens, or rock gardens, where their silouettes stand out; also grow in mixed borders, where their forms contrast against a softer backdrop. Some of the tender species form massive specimens.
Noteworthy characteristics: The bold lines of these rosette-forming plants make an architectural statement in both formal and naturalistic garden settings.
Care: Widely adaptable to different light, soil, and moisture conditions. Yuccas grow best in full sun to partial shade in rich, evenly moist soil. Tender species grow well under glass.
Propagation: Remove rooted suckers in spring. Take root cuttings in winter.
Problems: Cane borers, scale insects, and fungal leaf spots.

Species, varieties and cultivars for genus Yucca

Yucca filamentosa ‘Color Guard’
(Adam's needle) Be the first to rate this plant

Hardiness Zones:

This dramatic architectural plant is one of the most beautiful variegated yuccas on the market. Its sword-shaped leaves bear bold central stripes of bright canary-yellow against a rich celadon edge. In cool weather, margins are tinged pink, and the entire yellow stripe turns rose-colored on many of the leaves, lasting through early spring. Plants grow to 2 feet wide and nearly as tall. Branched clusters of nodding, creamy-white bells open in mid-summer on stout stems that reach 6 feet tall.

Yucca filamentosa ‘Golden Sword’
(Adam's needle, Bear grass, Weak-leaf yucca, Golden Sword soapwort) Be the first to rate this plant

Hardiness Zones:

This easy to grow evergreen yucca bears dramatic, sword-shaped yellow leaves with a dark green edge. Not as staunchly upright as some yuccas, its leaf tips sometimes droop with age. Its foliage color is best from fall to spring. Plants grow to nearly 2 feet in height and 3 feet in width. In summer, it produces a 6-foot-tall spike covered with nodding, fragrant, white bell-shaped flowers.

Yucca glauca
(Soapweed) Be the first to rate this plant

Hardiness Zones:

This clumping evergreen shrub with narrow leaves produces a startling, 3- to 4-foot-tall flower stalk. The fragrant flowers are pale green or greenish white. It is a tenacious weed in areas of the American West, but adds a touch of the desert to gardens. Soap can be made from its roots and the foliage is used in basket-making.

Yucca gloriosa
(Mound lily, Spanish dagger) Be the first to rate this plant

Hardiness Zones:

This sculptural plant bears sword-like leaves to 24 inches long in shades of blue- or gray-green and maturing to dark green, with smooth margins. In summer, the plant produces 8-foot spikes of nodding, bell-shaped, fragrant white flowers, sometimes tinged purple, to 2 inches long.