Guide to growing Yucca Plants

Yucca plants are hardy or half hardy perennials that range from 30cm to 2.5 metres in height.

Yucca's have very thick woody stems and spiky sword shaped leaves leaves.

Yucca flower from the middle of summer through autumn, when they carry white flowers. Some common names for the Yucca plant include Soapweed, Spanish Dagger, Spanish Bayonet and Adam's needle.

How to grow yucca

It is probably easiest to purchase Yucca plants from a garden centre or to plant from cuttings or offsets. Depending on the Yucca plant species space at 45 to 60cm apart (small), 60cm to 90cm (medium) or up to 1.2 metres apart for larger varieties of Yucca.

If you want to grow Yucca tree from seed then it is best to do so indoors. Yucca seeds take anything from one month to one year to germinate and are best sown at the end of winter.

Germinate yucca at 18 to 25 degrees centigrade and grow them indoors for about three years. It is best to keep yucca indoors in a safe place but if required in the garden then transplant them outdoors a few weeks after the last chance of any frost in the spring. Ideally they should be grown in a sunny area that has a poor soil with excellent drainage and a pH of 5.5 to 7.5.

If you have children or pets it is probably not a good idea to grow yucca in the garden as they have razor sharp leaves that can easily hurt people and animals.

Yucca plant care

It is important to tidy Yucca plants regularly. As they have very sharp foliage ensure that you wear protective chain mail gloves when doing any pruning or removal of yucca plants as they can easily cut off a finger! Other than this a Yucca plant cares after itself.