So far, my yuccas haven't taken over-I've heard other people say that about them too, maybe I've just been lucky. Sedum 'Autumn Joy' looks nice with them. Zebra grass is pretty planted behind them. They also look nice with hardy mums. Mine are not in as poor and dry an area as they prefer, but seem to be doing fine.

Try planting ditch lilies (tiger lilies) and a hardy artemestia with them. They bloom about the same time and look great together.

I didn't post before because I'm in almost the same position you're in: last fall I divided and moved two yuccas, and I'm now playing with possibilities. I mostly just have ideas - for whatever it's worth:

I inherited a bunch of yuccas surrounded by Comptonia peregrina (?) (sweet fern). Very natural looking, fine in the relaxed bed they're in. Not very jazzy.

I moved two of the yuccas to an area which already had ditch lilies and some other lilies, and I added a variegated yucca and some variegated sedums which should have complemented each other. Unfortunately, a garden mishap wiped out the variegated sedums. I then planted some sedum "Autumn Joy".

I think the bed needs something frothy; the artemesia sounds great, and I was wondering about maybe some Tanecetum (feverfew) or a short Allium. Festuca (blue fescue) might be good, or Helicotrichon (sp?) - blue oat grass.

I love yuccas in bloom, and I wonder if something like Perovskia would bloom at the same time. I'm also tempted to throw in some Verbascum, although they may be too similar to the yuccas in form.

Any Rudbeckia might look great too. I'll be planting again around the end of September, so I don't know yet what I'll do. My ideas way outrun my experience and knowledge, so I hope someone else can comment.

Claire

The 'grass guys' Oehme and van Sweden use a lot of yucca in their designs. They talk about combining fine textured plants w/ the coarse foliage of the yucca. Their wonderful book 'Bold Romantic Gardens' shows yuccas combined with 1)Ceratostigma, Coreopsis and Sedums; 2)Calamagrostis grass 3)Pennisetum alopecuroides and Sedum 'Autumn Joy' 4)Sedum 'A.J.', Molinia arundinacae 'Windspiel', and Miscanthus sinensis purpurascens. Hope this helps, let us know how it all works out!

Have just moved to a new home in the Okanagan and need advice on the front of my home. I am looking to do something with dry landscape using yuccas and ornamental grasses perhaps something to add uniqueness. I am also looking for someone who may have extra yuccas who want to get rid of a few. My yard is empty so I need help. Anyone out there?
Janet

I may have to rethink this after reading the comment about the roses but I have a couple yuccas (1 varigated and 1 green) and a tritoma in the far corner of my yard where the hose just doesnt reach without a stretch so it stays dry. I have planned to put in prickly pear and other hardy cacti, hens and chicks and some groundcover sedums around the edges. There are 3 boulders there and I was going to remove the mulch and put gravel and sand around the plants.

I planted the corm for a Yucca plant given to me by a friend about 4-5 years ago. Didn't do much the first year so I moved it--moved it again the next year. Forgot about it last year -- it had many long, sturdy leaves. Lo and behold this year it showed me its "stuff". One large (6') spike with so many beautiful creamy white blooms I just love it! I have Russian sage interspersed with artimesia silver king, large daylillies (salmon pink and yellow), and maiden grass growing around it then in front of them sidalcea (tall pink) and zebrina malva (raspberry), blue delphinium, moonbeam coreopsis, with lavender, Johnsons blue geranium and violets in front of that.

My yuccas are very good about dropping their seeds and replanting themselves without any attention on my part. However, I recently gave a number of seeds to a friend and am at a loss as to what to advise that he do with them. Can anyone give me an idea on how to go about a proper yucca seed planting?

Yaccas are great drought-tolerant plants. Put them in the proper place (well-drained soil in full sun or light shade)and forget about them. Because they have such bold leaves, plant with soft leaves companions that are also drought-tolerant such as coreopsis, Russian sage, ornamental grasses, and sedums.

WARNING- The leaves are spiky and will draw blood.

Dont understand quite why, but I find Yuccas to be Yukky.
Im equally narrowminded and prejeduced against red twig
(or any twig)...dogwood. Fraid Im no help at all, cuz you
know Id say dig it out.

I don't know if this is workable in your climate, but the English gardener Rosemary Verey suggest underplanting Yuccas with Bergenias. Both have bold foliage that contrasts well. Bergenias are happy in sun if you give them a little water.

Hi,

You might have already done your bed, but I have a few ideas. I feel the rose is a cottage garden style, and the yucca a casual low maintenance or rock garden style, so they are not very compatible visually, or as far as the care required. I have 3 Golden Sword yuccas, which I believe are very attractive in my narrow rock garden bed which runs along one side of our driveway. I have them grouped in a staggered row because it is a long, narrow, border type of bed. They were a perfect choice because the soil there is very poor and dry, and difficult for the hose to reach, and also because they discourage the neighbor children from using this bed as a bicycle ramp! (The bed is bermed in the center.) My bed is about 18 ft long and about 8 ft wide by necessity. I am doing the chartruese/burgundy color combination, but your yuccas might be the plain green ones. I think an ornamental grass such as been suggested by others would look great, I have a miscanthus sinensis 'Malpartus'. You could make your choice depending on the height (my personal feeling is to choose one taller than the yuccas-not a pennisetum alopecuroides, because this would be too similar in size and the seed heads shatter before winter). I also have a sedum 'Autumn Joy', a dwarf crimson pygmy barberry, and a black eyed susan, rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldstrum', which accents the chartruese in my yuccas, but might look nice with yours, too. I've also thought that daylilies would look great with the yuccas, and there are so many exciting new ones that have a longer bloom time. Hope this helps!

I just about read everything about yucca but nothing about
how to tke care of them. I love mu yucca had at least 6 most beautiful flowers(I guess you can call it that).
But I would like to know how to look after them properly,
got a load of dry & brown leafs on the bottom.

I planted 3 yuccas in a triangular pattern towards the front my garden bed. I've surrounded them with lighter textured plant material which seems nice from a textural standpoint. What I'm struggling with is that the yuccas seem to over power the bed (which is new as of last Spring). I would be interested to know how others of you are balancing them out in the bed. Are you grouping or planting singles?

Gisela

I have done a lot of reading about Yuccas, Adam's Neddle, and have recently adopted several. Most people with experence think you should hack them down to the ground with a lawn mower or weedeater when they get ugly. Be careful the mess isn't more than your mower can handle. I can see a well established Yucca busting a small mower easy! Fall is a good time for this but I see no reason you can't do this anytime. Otherwise Like you say they will have those alful dead leaves at the bottom. You may not even have to do this every year. I would though. When these things get ugly they are really ugly!

I found some growing wild today near a dam. Of couse no one prunes them and they all looked ok. It must be so gorgous when they all bloom at the same time. There was a patch of a dozen or more. One by the local supermarket garden's outside however is horendously ugly because of all the brown leaves on the bottom. I don't know why that is.

You don't have to worry about hurting it. It will grow back. In fact some people who wanted to get rid of theirs advise planters to pick a good spot where to put it because once it is established, its there forever. Any part of the root left behind will grow back. No one has ever complained about a yucca dieing -- ever.

Other than that they will take care of themselves. If you don't want babies everywhere than dispose of the stalk before it goes to seed.

I have pods if anyone wants some. I snapped them up from plants growing in the wild. I could get more too. Be warned most have worms in them! Just send me a SASE and you all can have as many as you like :)

Thats about all I have a surpluss this year.

Nasturtiums are pretty around the base of yucca, because they creep and keep the bed from being totally angular, but they aren't delicate little pastels that would clash with the yucca's fierce boldness. They come in yellow and orange mostly, sometimes red. And they also like poor, dry soil.

Gaillardia (goblin's blanket) is also nice, for the same reasons. They look like daisies, only the eye is fatter and deep red, with the petals shading out to bright yellow. And unlike nasturtiums, they're perennial.

Thanks for all the information about Yucca plants folks have posted here. My new summer home on a lake had a yucca plant in the perennial garden. It was fascinating to watch it grow last summer. I love the stalk of white flowers it produces in the summer and learned that it is sometimes called "ghosts int he graveyard" because it is very creepy looking at night.

Last winter the deer population in the area thought it was a tasty treat and chewed every leaf down to the ground! It was a mess! I cut away the chewed leaves and could not believe how beautiful the plant grew this summer. It has produced several more baby plants. I have it planted with garden phlox and rudibekia but will probably add some new plants based on what I have read here.