Sad Yukka needs help :-(

11 years ago

I have a Yukka plant which I keep indoors, I've had it nearly 20 years and for a while now it's been getting extremely sick and I am desperate to get some help to make it better.

Basically the first thing was that, randomly, a new shoot appeared from the pot, and started growing. A while later, the main plant starting getting droopy and thin, and as it was growing, the stem was getting thinner and weaker. Then, devastatingly, it got knocked one day and the top snapped and broke .... sniff.

Since then the trunk has completely died, it's soft and squishy to touch.

However... the "new"shoot continued to grow, and was later joined by a second new shoot as well. At the moment they are both growing but they too seem to be thin, soft and weak so they just fall over instead of growing strong upwards.

I am hoping that one of these two shoots can continue growing and keep the plant alive, but they don't seem very healthy at the moment and I am worried if they both die off, that will be the end of the whole plant. I've had it since I was a kid, so it would be heartbreaking if it dies!

Please can anyone have a look at the attached photo and give me any tips or ideas on what might be the problem, or how I could maybe help these two small shoots to start to get strong and grow into a proper trunk again?

Thank you in advance!!
Danielle

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Comments (3)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
11 years ago
have you changed the media in those 20 years ...

i see pot in pot... i bet the inner pot has drainage.. the outer not ...

i dont think its a yucca... but i am sure our friends here might ID it ... if not.. try in the name that plant forum ...

if you rotted the main trunk.. you probably rotted off all the roots ... and i suspect it is a watering issue ...

once you get the proper ID ... even if you are right... google PROPAGATION OF using the latin name.. and lets see if we cant root up those pieces and get rid of the rotting mess .. including the old media ...

ken
pelargonium_gw
11 years ago
I do think it is a yucca, but in my opinion it's beyond saving. If you really want to give it a try, you could cut off the new shoots and try to root them. It might work, or it might not, because they are small and weak. It may help if you have the option of putting them under growing light, as this is not the best time of year. This is the only advise I can give you. I am pretty sure the rotting of the main stem is a watering issue - yuccas should be planted in a free draining medium, and allowed to dry up quite a bit between every watering.
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dkschofield
Original Author
11 years ago
Hi,

Thank you for your replies!

Just to clarify, the rotting of the stem wasn't the original cause of the stem dying - the stem was just growing thin and weak towards the top - and then when the top leaves snapped off (leaving a no-leave top) the stem eventually died off and has gone soft and mushy since then.

The plant was potted about 2-3 years ago into the current pot, there's no internal pot it's just soil inside the main, big one.

Any more thoughts given the above clarifications?
Also if I were to re-pot / re-root the smaller shoots, any good advice on how I would go about that? I've not done it before....

Would it be worth taking the plant out of the soil, cutting back the whole of the dead stem and then repotting the two shoots as they are into a smaller pot with good drainage? rather than cutting them off as such?

Thanks so much,
Danielle