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Genus

Yucca

The Yucca genus in the Plotwright catalog - 2 species: Adam's needle, Soapweed yucca. Open any for hardiness, native range, wildlife value, and growing guidance.

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Adam's needle (Yucca filamentosa) in summer bloom: a single tall central panicle of nodding, bell-shaped, creamy-white flowers rising on a stout stalk from a basal rosette of stiff, sword-shaped green leaves in a garden bed.

Yucca filamentosa

A virtually stemless, broadleaf-evergreen native of central and eastern North America: a basal rosette of rigid, sword-shaped, spine-tipped leaves up to 30 inches long, fringed along the margins with the curly white threads that give the species its name. In early summer a flowering stalk shoots from the center to 5 to 8 feet, carrying nodding, bell-shaped, creamy-white flowers. Tough enough for poor sandy soil, heat, drought, and salt spray, it earns its keep as architectural structure in dry and seaside gardens.

Full sun / Part shade

Soapweed yucca (Yucca glauca) showing a basal rosette of narrow, pale blue-green dagger-like leaves beneath a tall stalk of pendulous greenish-white bell-shaped flowers in a sandy prairie setting.

A hardy, evergreen Great Plains yucca that holds a low rosette of narrow, pale blue-green dagger-like leaves and sends up a 4 1/2-foot stalk of pendulous, greenish-white bell flowers in early summer. Extremely drought- and poor-soil tolerant, it depends on an obligate mutualism with the yucca (Pronuba) moth - the only insect that pollinates it - so seed is not produced every year. The root has long been used to make soap, giving the plant its common name.

Climate: moderate